


The Take

by distractionpie



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crime, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode Style, Inaccuracies - Art History, Inaccuracies - General, Inaccuracies - Geography, Inaccuracies - Law, M/M, Slow Burn Feelings, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-04-20 17:10:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 92,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14265765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: Joseph Liebgott is one of the best art thieves in the business, but during a job in Boston he runs into some unexpected trouble. Trouble who just won’t seem to go away.





	1. Episode 1 - An Unfortunate Encounter

**_Boston, Massachusetts - March 2015_ **

 

Joe had been in a lot of galleries over the years and in time he’d picked up a sense of what the places could tell you about their owners. The Westing-Anderson Gallery screamed ‘more money than sense’ with all its extravagant architecture —it was purpose built with high ceilings, wide windows, ornate curlicues— and the complete lack of taste that had clearly gone into the design. That wasn’t really a surprise though, given what he was there for.

The Van Meyer portraits.

Jacqueline Van Meyer was one of the art world’s current darlings. She could spit into a tissue and have collectors bidding before she had time to toss the thing in the direction of a trash can. Individually her portraits went for six figure sums, the triptych she’d produced over the summer of 2011 had been split up at purchase because no buyer was willing to pay for all three, but her renown had only grown since then and late last spring art gossipers had started whispering about the Westing-Anderson’s attempts to purchase all three panels and reunite them. The negotiations had taken months, but in the end the Westing-Anderson’s had got their paintings for an undisclosed sum that was rumoured to number in the millions for each individual painting. Likely a sound investment, because the portraits value would likely increase by being together again.

And the art world was currently in love with the Westing-Andersons because instead of keeping the portraits for their own viewing pleasure, they’d agreed to display them temporarily in their gallery first, where they could be viewed by any curious comer — for a moderate fee, of course.

Joe had seen photos of the paintings and in his view they were frankly hideous and Van Meyer was a fad whose work would be worthless twenty years on, but it wasn’t his business to judge the target’s taste or common sense. What mattered to Joe was that there were other collectors who were willing to pay extravagantly to have the paintings for themselves and since the Westing-Andersons aren’t interested in selling, that meant paying an acquisitions expert.

That meant paying Joe and so Joe had made a habit of never letting his work by affected by the poor taste of his clients, as long as that taste was expensive. Rich men with tacky art preferences were how the jobs he liked doing got funded.

It had taken three months to get to his present point. He’d started planning as soon as the rumours starting consistently pointing to the Westing-Andersons as the future owners of the Van Meyer triptych. He hadn’t had a buyer then but he’d known he’d able to find one and it was better to infiltrate early. The gallery wouldn’t be taking on any new staff too close to the arrival of a high-value addition to their collection and anyone who seemed to eager to join would be viewed with suspicion. Whereas, Joseph Gordon, a quiet guy who’d been on the janitorial staff since before the Westing-Andersons had finalised purchase of the Van Meyers, was a reliable and trustworthy employee with a key-card that would get him into the all of the visitor access areas and most of the backrooms. Plus he was a good buddy who’d never rat the guards out for watching basketball instead of the security monitors while on the night shift.

The patience didn't come naturally to him, Joe preferred speed and stealth to long infiltrations, but a payout like this was worth the work.

The Joseph Gordon identity was a little like a vacation. A shit vacation staying in a crappy apartment and working ten hour shifts at barely above minimum wage, but it was an interesting change to stay in one place for months at a time and form routines without having to worry about attracting the wrong sort of attention. Joseph Gordon was too boring to attract any sort of attention, just as a good fake I.D should be. That said, for what then Westing-Anderson gallery paid it's staff Joe was astounded that they weren’t getting robbed every second Tuesday. He never felt guilty about his work, but there was a certain sort of asshole that it was a pleasure to steal from.

 Joe had only met the owners twice, he mostly dealt with the gallery manager for business purposes, and he was happy to keep it that way. He might be working a false name, but there was no need to flaunt his face about unnecessarily, and anyway if he spent too long in their company Joe knew he’d never be able to maintain the facade of meek low-ranked employee when what he wanted was to tell them where they could shove their opinions of anybody who had to work for a living.

With a week to go before he could finally take advantage of the clamour of preparations for the paintings' unveiling and make the grab, the goal was to keep as low of a profile as possible. This meant not attracting the attention of the owners or bitching out the manager for messing with his shifts on a moments notice, no matter how tempting it was. At least Joe had the consolation of knowing he was getting out of there and going back to the good life once he was done - he was never sure why more people hadn't turned to crime when putting up with shit-work for shit bosses like this was the alternative.

A six am start time on a weekend meant two things - neither of which Joe was happy about. Firstly, getting to the gallery by that hour from the shitty neighbourhood that was all Joseph Gordon could afford on his meagre pay meant Joe had to get up by 5am and even that allowed him only fifteen minutes to get ready (Joe liked sleep, and it suited the cover to have Joseph Gordon not care much about his appearance) before taking a bus full of other exhausted people being exploited by their employers, plus a unpleasant scattering of drunks who hadn't yet made it home from the night before. Secondly, a sudden demand for extra early morning cleaning and repairs meant important visitors, and while Joe had known the Westing-Andersons would likely be overseeing the final prep for their big event he hadn't expected them for a few more days.

Joe would never have made it as far as he had in life if he were prone to panicking, but rich people messing up his plans by doing unexpected shit was never good for his stress levels. Hopefully it would just be a sign of the Westing-Andersons control freak tendencies and not because they were changing up some aspect of their plans on a whim, but Joe was going to have to be extra cautious and also extra attentive in order to avoid any nasty surprises.

It was easy enough to take a peak at the managers schedule, the guy never locked his office door, and see that the Westing-Andersons would be coming in at nine. It was a little harder to find enough work to do that he could justify hanging around for their arrival —he’d been called in so early for the express purpose of having him gone before they arrived, the manager firmly of their belief that the rich should never have to lay eyes on the people who made their decadent lifestyles possible— but Joseph Gordon was kind of a klutz and an overturned mop-bucket as well as noticing a ‘broken’ shelf bought him the time he needed.

His tactical stalling meant that he was diligently and conveniently oiling a door hinge that wasn’t squeaky but might get that way soon if left untended, when the cause of all the manager’s fussing arrived.

Anna Westing-Anderson, statuesque and severe; Heather Westing-Anderson, the real art enthusiast of the pair, surveying the gallery with the eagle eye for faults that had all the staff a little terrified of her; and a man Joe had never seen before.

Joe hated unknown elements.

The stranger might be insignificant but this close to the end of the job Joe wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He needed to know more about the newcomer.

He was younger than the women he accompanied, one of Heather’s students? No, he didn’t have the look of an artist. He was dressed in a suit —mid-range, no visible indicator of a designer and certainly not tailored to fit (it hung off his frame like a child playing dress up) but decent quality fabric— rumpled like it had been slept in and left him looking more than a little shabby standing next to the couture clad women. Badly dressed and he had his dark hair was slicked back in a way that suggested some effort had been made with his appearance, but he’d prioritised groomed over attractive and the overly liberal application of whatever product he used made his hair look stiff and greasy. But he had the Westing-Anderson’s attention which meant there had to be something important about him.

“Do you really think we’re likely to be a target?” Anna asked, sounding like she wasn’t particularly convinced of whatever she’d been told before the group entered Joe’s hearing.

“I’m afraid that my office has received credible threats,” the stranger said.

Office? Threats? Definitely not a student, and that pretty much foiled Joe’s hopeful theory that he was just a particularly unfashionable relative.

“But why us?” Heather said. “While I’m certainly proud of our collection, Agent Webster, we don’t have any truly valuable works. Why, even if they cleared out the entire gallery, the insurers only valued it at fifteen million!”

Years of experience meant that Joe didn’t curse aloud.

Agent. Of course, who else would wear a suit that bad? Law enforcement sniffing around was the last thing Joe needed. He was hardly top of the most wanted list, that was for people who got caught, but he didn’t need the scrutiny this close to the day of the heist. He shifted, making a show of checking the upper hinge so that he can get a better look at the trio. The payout offered for the Van Meyer portraits was big and Joe wasn’t afraid of taking risks but he needed to know what he’d be dealing with.

“The Van Meyer portraits have drawn the particular interest of certain organised crime elements in Europe,” Agent Webster explained. “Over the past year, five have been taken from private collections in Spain, France, and Italy, as well as an attempt in Vancouver that was fortunately interrupted by local law enforcement. Interpol’s sources believe that the triptych is likely to be targeted during the installation, while it’s at it’s most vulnerable.”

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Interpol?

Joe had known other people were interested in the triptych but he hadn’t realised the whole damn collection was hot. He’d that heard one had vanished in Spain, but the other thefts must not have been reported because Joe’s research hadn’t turned up so much as a rumour. As for a European crime gang… no, there was no way. Joe would not notice somebody else moving in on his mark. More likely it was a case of Interpol taking a guess at what a pattern like that meant, then if somebody did make a play while the security around the painting was low, they’d look clever for figuring out what was coming even if they’d failed to stop it, and could pretend they actually knew shit and hadn’t just turned up to the previous crime scenes to scratch their heads after the party was over.

Joe looked the agent over again, now with the knowledge that the guy was with Interpol taken into consideration, and to his surprise what he saw reassured him.

Agent Webster looked young for an Interpol agent, like a rookie that had been stuck with the grunt work of pointing out to stupid rich people that flashing around their valuables would make them a target of crime, and he was letting Anna and Heather lead them around the room instead of taking charge. Good. An inexperienced kid still finding his feet as an agent probably wouldn’t give Joe any more trouble that the usual rent-a-cop guards, presuming that his inexperience didn’t lead to the Westing-Andersons trying to go over his head and bring a superior or more private security into the mix.

With six days to go all Joe needed to do was keep his head down and let the plan play out.

 

*

 

It wasn’t going to be easy.

Agent Webster might have been a rookie who kept stuttering nervously at the Westing-Andersons but he wasn’t a total moron either. He’d pointed out several holes in the gallery’s security and while none of them were essential to Joe’s plan, the gaps being closed were going to make matters more inconvenient. Joe had resisted the temptation to tail Webster, the guy hadn’t made any checks on the staff yet —an error even a rookie should know better than to make— and Joe had no interest in inadvertently prompting him to take a closer look, but he had been eavesdropping as comprehensively as he could and picking up all the gossip he could get from the other staff. He had learnt that all of Agent Webster’s suits were as terrible as the first, that he was staying in a crappy hotel that presumably didn’t come with an iron because he was consistently the shabbiest looking person in any room he’s in, he was driving a cheap rental car, and it seemed the state of his hair upon arrival wasn’t the result of an unfortunate accident because he had the same dipped headfirst in slime look every day. Heather wrinkled her nose every time she looked at him and Joe kept having to fight the urge to laugh and draw attention to himself.

Not stalking Webster didn’t mean he couldn’t get information though. Joe might work alone but that didn’t mean he didn’t have contacts. He didn’t like doing things that could tie back to his regular life while he was operating under a cover I.D, but from the relatively safe position of his crappy apartment he was willing to risk a call to somebody he mostly trusted.

Well, a text first. Joe had excellent timezone etiquette, or at least he did when he needed people in a good enough mood to do him favours.

Once his request was out there he set to making dinner, a microwave tray that had lost it’s cardboard label in the depths of his ice-box but looked like it might contain chicken, and was eating when his phone finally rang with a callback.

“Hey,” Skinny said. “Been a while since I’ve heard from you. You got a job?”

Had it been so long? Skinny was one of the people Joe talked to most often but it was hard to keep in touch with anybody while constantly hopping countries and changing numbers. “I’ve got something going,” he admitted. “But I don’t need work from you, just a bit of information digging up.”

“Mid-job?” The judgement was obvious in Skinny’s tone. As if Joe was some sort of idiot who hadn’t done his research first.

“Things have changed. There’s a guy sniffing around,” Joe said. “Some wet behind the ears kid checking up on my target. I overheard him saying a few of the other Van Meyer’s had been targets, that it might be a gang job.”

“Aw fuck, Joe,” Skinny said. “Thought you had more sense that to get mixed up in that shit.”

“That’s why I want you to check it out,” Joe answered. If there really was a gang closing in then he’d have to weigh up if he wanted to deal with the extra risk, and that was a decision he couldn’t made without more information.

“What am I looking up?”

“Van Meyers, he mentioned them getting taken in France, Italy, Spain, but no details,” Joe said. “But I didn’t find anything like that when I was doing my research.”

“So you want me to dig in…” Skinny sighed. “How deep?”

Joe bit his lip. On one hand, having Skinny trawl every possible avenue would give him certainty, but that would also take way too long. He’d worked with Skinny enough times to know that hacking wasn’t like on TV and there was no magical database Skinny could slip into that could get all the information in one go. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he admitted. “I just wanna make sure I’m not about to accidentally get tangled up with a mob job or some shit like that.”

“Alright,” Skinny said. “Give me an hour.”

Joe passed the time eating his microwave dinner (actually fish, but all those meals tasted like cardboard anyway) and surfing the few channels his TV got, looking for anything that wasn’t reality TV or one of the million barely-veiled-propaganda cop dramas networks seemed obliged to put out.

Fifty minutes later, Skinny called back.

“I can’t find shit about Van Meyers being stolen,” he said.

“What?”

“Either your agent has bad information or there’s been one hell of a cover-up,” he said. “There’s something hinky about this, maybe you should move on.”

Joe scowled. He’d put too many months into this cover I.D to just give up. “Maybe it’s just make-work to keep a useless agent out of the way,” Joe speculated. “Or he’s working off a personal theory and trying to score some glory. Did you see anything that actually implied there were gangs after the Van Meyers?”

“Nothing at all,” Skinny said. “Some vague mummers about security risks but nothing more that comes with any high value pieces.”

There was no way he was calling off a job he’d already put months of his life into over some rumours. “Thanks Skinny,” he said. “You’ve taken a weight off.”

It was time to move onto his final preparations.

Getting into the gallery wasn’t going to be a problem, he'd spent three months making sure of that, and he had the moment of the take planned down to the last millisecond, had spent weeks pouring over every detail of the security system and the plans for the paintings transfer out secure storage the Westing-Anderson’s had kept in in while they prepared for the display and Joe had figured out the perfect point to get his hands on them. After that, all he had to do was make his getaway. He’d lose the security deposit on his apartment of course, but he wasn’t worried about six hundred bucks when he was about to come into a seven-figure payment upon delivery of the paintings. After a long time playing a fake identity there was always going to be a bit of temptation to try and take a part of that life with him when the job was done, the plant he'd been tending for months, the library book he was only halfway through, but Joe had to ensure a clean break while not doing anything that would give away the fact he was planning on leaving. They key to success was all in those details, little things like not giving into the temptation to acquire a car or book his bus ticket ahead of time that might draw the wrong sort of attention because Joseph Gordon had no reason to be going anywhere.

It was also in the bigger things like not panicking when Joe got to work three days before the plan was due to go off and found Agent Webster poking about in the storage closet Joe kept his equipment in. A deep breath or a defencive demand to know what Webster was playing out would Joe look like he was hiding something to any investigator worth their salt. And Joe had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t take a risk like keeping anything incriminating on the premises he was planning to rob unless he was entirely out of other options. But three months on the job made the storage closed his space and he didn’t want anybody else in it. Joseph Gordon wasn’t a confrontational guy though, so Joe just cleared his throat.

Fate smiled on him. Agent Webster jumped at the sound and hit his head on the shelf above him with a satisfying thud.

“Are you okay?” Joe said, and if a hint of amusement slipped through, well who could resist a slapstick moment like that, even if they didn’t have his secret reasons to dislike law enforcement prying.

“Fine,” Agent Webster said shortly, and oh, he wasn’t so timid and awkward around the service staff, was he? Typical.

“Mind if I ask what you’re looking for in here,” Joe said. “Doesn’t seem like there’d be much in a storage closet to interest you fancy F.B.I types or whatever it is you are.”

“I’m checking for any potential insecurities, entry and exit points, service corridors, vents,” Webster said, gesturing. It was a little unnecessary. The closet wasn’t a very big place to search and just poking his head around the door should have made clear there was nothing to see.

“Unless your crime gang is comprised entirely of pre-schoolers I don’t think the vents here are going to be an issue, Agent Webster.”

Webster scowled. “Not just human entry. There’s a lot of high-tech criminals operating now,” he huffed.

Well, Joe supposed the guy couldn’t have got into Interpol if he didn’t know at least a few things about stopping criminals. “You got a first name, Agent?” he asked. It was a bold move but he was pretty sure it would slip under Webster’s radar as Joe’s persona just being a friendly kind of guy. Actually it was because if Webster was going to continue hanging around and making a nuisance of himself, Joe might get Skinny to dig deeper and try and find a a few more details about exactly who he was dealing with and two names would get him a lot higher odds of a useful result that one.

“Kenyon.”

“Ken, huh?” Joe said. “Does that mean Secret Agent Barbie is on her way too?”

The furrows of Webster’s brow deepened. He was going to get premature lines pulling faces like that and it was a shame because with that hair and that dress sense, his decent facial structure was about the only thing he had going for him looks-wise and if he ruined that by scowling he’d have nothing left.

“It’s just a storage cupboard, nothing to see here,” Joe dismissed. “Unless you think somebody is going to do something nefarious with a mop.”

“Overconfidence kills,” Webster said snootily.

Joe blinked. “I thought you were after thieves not murderers,” he said. Of course, there was sometimes overlap between the two, especially with people who had an excessively violent approach to dealing with security, but surely if Webster was anticipating that he’d have warned Westing-Andersons of the severity of the situation.

“Criminals,” Webster scoffed. “They’re all the same.”

Oh, Joe was going to enjoy getting one over on this guy.

 

*

 

The crux of Joe's plan was simple.

The Westing-Andersons might have hired the best movers in the business and Agent Webster might be lurking around claiming he was going to bring down the crime gang he thought was after the paintings, but as far as Joe was concerned the paintings were going to all but be placed in his hands. Because Webster had left one gaping hole in the security.

An armoured van would be bringing the paintings from the Westing-Anderson's vault and they would be highly supervised as they were unloaded and hung in the room which had been cleared specially for their display. The transition meant that a dozen people would all be hanging around the painting room —guards, the movers, the gallery manager, the Westing-Andersons, and Agent Webster himself— and that meant the motion detector alarms would be turned off for a full thirty minutes while the paintings were put in place. The security control room that was on the other side of the gallery to the room in which the Van Meyer portraits would be hanging, the smart move would be to have somebody waiting in the control room and radio them to reactive the alarms as soon as the portrait gallery was cleared but Webster had naively promised the Westing-Andersons that he was personally go over to the security control room and ensure all the alarms were reset correctly. Even at a jog it would take two and a half minutes to get from the portrait room to the control room and Joe highly doubted that Webster was going to jog, which meant for least three minutes the portraits room would be empty and un-alarmed. And three minutes was two more than Joe really needed.

He wasn't scheduled to be working at the delivery time, after hours when the gallery was long shut and the streets were quiet of traffic, but his key card would get him in everywhere he needed to be and the rest of the staff were far too focused on preparing for the paintings to notice that he'd clocked in at his shift but never clocked back out of the building. The storage closet Webster had been sticking his nose in might not be a good entry or exit point, but it was the perfect place to wait for the painting room to clear out and then walk right in without being seen.

The worst part of it was the waiting.

Joe’s shift had ended six hours before the scheduled delivery time, which was a lot of time to spend sitting on a concrete floor in pitch darkness. If he'd brought a phone, he could have played games or browsed the internet, but there was always the chance that somebody would notice the glow of the screen leaking out from under the door. It was a slim chance, but Joe would rather be alone with his thoughts for a while than risk fucking up a multi-million-dollar job just because he couldn't handle being bored for a few hours. The cold was the worst of it. The main gallery was heated and that seeped through to the staff areas, but there was only so much that could be done against March in Boston and by the time the very faint light of Joe’s watch display showed 22:45 his ass had gone completely numb. But it was no time to worry about that.

This was the riskiest part. Joe had done his best to estimate how long it would take from the delivery time to get the paintings unloaded and hung, but there was no way of knowing for sure how long it would take and how long the participants would hang around afterwards. He had to rely on listening at the door to gauge the progress, carefully working out when the room was cleared. If he messed up this part, thought he'd heard the place empty out when in fact somebody lagged behind the group, the whole plan fell apart.

He’d estimated five minutes to bring the painting in from the loading bay. The outside wall of the closet he was hiding in was directly opposite the loading bay, so he heard as the moving truck pulled away. That was one group of people down. Then the paintings would have to be hung. This was the most unpredictable part of the night. Between Anna's exacting standards and Heather’s very specific tastes Joe suspected that rather than the paintings simply being hung and everybody going home in time to catch the late show the hanging was likely to be an ordeal involving spirit levels to make sure the art was exactly straight and lots of stopping for minute lighting adjustments in order to get the best possible effect from the artwork. It was Joe's view that any art that couldn't impress while propped up against the wall of a warehouse or temporary hide-out post-job was hardly impressive at all, but he'd spent months despairing of the Westing-Andersons' tastes and he wasn't inclined to dwell on what he was so close to being free of. So an unknown amount of time, but he could listen for the sounds of people leaving. That part dragged on for what seemed like an age but finally he heard the click of high-heeled shoes passing by. The Westing-Andersons. Now things got really difficult. Joe had a good ear but there was no way he could distinguish between Agent Webster, the guards, and the manager based on footsteps alone. He could do his best to estimate numbers, but unless they came out talking there was no way to be sure. The guards he knew were chatty and sure enough he heard all four of them coming down the hall, bitching indiscreetly about the basketball game they were missing just to watch their bosses hang a painting on the wall. The left Webster and the manager.

Joe’s worst case scenario was that one or both of them would leave silently at the same time as the guards, utterly fucking up all of Joe’s best options for assessing their progress, but the guards open complaints about their work meant that the manager couldn’t be with them, and Agent Webster’s plan gave Joe the guarantee that the agent would be the last person out of the room.

The minutes dragged on. Had Joe miscalculated? Had Agent Webster deviated from the plans Joe had overheard and slipped past Joe before the guards? Then he heard the obsequious voice of the manager. “You really can’t believe how grateful we are for your assistance with this. For Interpol overseeing our security personally, it’s an honour and a privilege.”

Joe grinned in the darkness. Almost there.

Two sets of footsteps moved passed his hiding place as Webster said, “It’s all in a day’s work,” in a tone that might have been trying for humble but couldn’t quite hide the fact that he was enjoying being the recipient of such flattery.

Joe listened as the steps moved down the corridor and fell away out of earshot.

It was go time.

He slid open the closet door as quietly as he could and slipped out into the darkened corridor. One of the first things he’d noticed during his initial reconnaissance of the building was the lack of automatic lights, ideal for anybody who wanted to sneak about unnoticed and exactly the sort of omen he hoped for on a job like this.

Joe had spent years mastering moving silently and the darkness didn’t phase him as he slipped into the portrait room. He lifted the first frame down from the wall and carried it over to the delivery bay exit. His key-card would let him carry the paintings onto the loading dock and into a camera blind-spot where he’d have the time he needed to strip the canvases from their frames for travel.

He was moving towards the second painting when the light turned on.

The one factor that could never be guaranteed in this business was luck. He could plan and manipulate as much as he liked but no situation was one hundred percent predictable. He prepared his story in his mind as he turned: the security guards trusted him and would be easily distracted with talks of just wanting to see what all the fuss was about, the manager didn’t trust him at all but could probably at least be stalled enough to allow Joe to escape cleanly even if he couldn’t take the paintings, the Westing-Anderson’s might be harder to trick, but when he finally turned, standing in the doorway was Agent Webster.

Oh fuck.

Maybe Agent Webster had dropped his pen, maybe he just wanted one last smug look at the paintings he thought he'd protected, maybe he'd had a gut feeling and decided to make one final security sweep of the room. The reason didn't matter. All that mattered was that he’d come back.

There was nowhere for Joe to go.

He could make a break for the door, but even if he could outrun Agent Webster, he’d have to leave the paintings behind and Joe's smooth getaway plan, to slip away inconspicuously into the night and onto a bus out of town, fell apart if he was being pursued by five feet ten of badly dressed Interpol agent.

Agent Webster looked as surprised to see Joe as Joe was to see him and it turned Joe’s stomach. Getting caught was a risk of the business but it was just embarrassing to be walked in on mid-heist because an incompetent wannabe agent wasn’t in the place the guy’s own plan said he'd be.

“Shouldn’t you be going to turn the alarms back on right now?” Joe quipped. “What if somebody broke in?”

Agent Webster moved fast.

Joe barely had time to make it two steps towards the door before he was being tackled to the ground hard. Clearly Interpol had recruited the guy for his arresting skills not his investigative ones. Joe kicked, once, twice, but then he heard the snap and felt the cuffs seal around his wrists. Webster stood and Joe tried to make a move only to be stopped short by the cuffs digging into his skin. A glance over his shoulder revealed that Webster had wrapped the cuffs around the railing that discouraged the viewing public from getting to close to the art so that it now held Joe in place. Bastard.

“Clearly I was right to look in that cupboard of yours,” Agent Webster remarked. Arrogant prick. He wouldn’t have found anything even if he had looked, there was nothing that marked it out as Joe’s hiding place and all of the tools he was going to use to get the paintings from the frames were things that legitimately belonged there.

"Aren't you supposed to read me my rights now?" Joe snapped. He’d had one or two run-ins with the kind of law enforcement that felt that part of the job was negotiable and while nothing about the wet-behind-the-ears agent struck him as the 'looks like the suspect fell down the stairs three times on the way to the cells' type, the deviation from protocol still made him uncomfortable.

Agent Webster raised his eyebrows. "Oh?" he said. "An expert, are you?"

Certainly he was more of one that Webster, since instead of following any sort of protocol Webster stepped over the railing and lifted the next painting off of the wall. “Interesting choice, the Van Meyers,” he remarked. “Are you looking to start a personal collection or do you have a fence?”

Joe bristled. It was one thing to be handcuffed but another to be mocked. Cuffs he could handle. Joe never went anywhere without a pick up his sleeve. If he could just talk Webster into leaving him alone for a few minutes — after all he’d need to call the local PD to bring Joe in and why should he worry about supervising Joe when he was securely handcuffed?

Joe rattled the cuffs in a display of resistance that was more about getting a sense for what he was dealing with. They didn’t feel like standard police issue.

“Honestly, I’m not a fan,” Agent Webster continued, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a pen-knife. “Moving into triptych just seems like a cheap attempt to milk the cash cow of fame.”

Joe blanched. No. No fucking way. His mother had always told him not to judge a book by it’s cover but that was about good manners not a warning that dull looking law enforcement agents might extend their abuses of power as far as being knife wielding psychos.

The blade caught the light as Webster raised it and fuck there wasn’t a job in the world that paid the kind of money for Joe to be dealing with this shit.

The knife came down, slicing the canvas from its frame and Joe gasped, half in relief that Webster didn’t seem interested in turning the knife on him and half in horror that he was cutting a million-dollar painting with a cheap blade.

“What are you doing?!” he asked, once again rattling his cuffs as he strained against them. This couldn’t be part of the Westing-Andersons security arrangement, it made no sense. Webster rolled the canvas up, paint side facing out so he either knew something about moving unframed paintings or he was very lucky. The way he moved across to slide the remaining painting down had Joe suspecting the former.

“Don’t bother trying to break out of the cuffs,” Webster remarked, looking over his shoulder at Joe. “My badge might be a fake, but they’re the real deal.”

Joe stared at him. “You’re not Interpol.”

The smirk Webster threw in his direction made Joe want to punch his teeth in. “Really?” he said, two paintings tucked under his arm as he worked on removing the third. “What gave me away?”

Fuck. Joe wasn’t being arrested, he was having his take stolen right out from under him. “You fucker! You- you-!” There weren’t words for it. If Joe had been hearing the story instead of the victim of it he might have admired Webster’s gall but as it was he just wanted to strangle the bastard with his own cuffs.

“Your plan wasn’t bad,” Webster offered, with a smile that looked conciliatory but was belied by the smug tone he used. “A little unoriginal, going in as the janitor—”

“—maintenance guy,” Joe could help but correct. It involved a lot more skilled labour than just mopping floors but he supposed he could hardly expect somebody like Webster to have enough respect for service workers to know a thing like that.

“—but then, the security here really is terrible. The Westing-Anderson’s were so grateful for my help with that.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll be less grateful when they realise you walked out with their paintings through the gaping hole you deliberately left.”

Webster shrugged, rolling the final painting. “Well, they should know better than to trust anybody giving away their services for free.”

“You’re a prick,” Joe hissed.

“There’s no need to be rude. This isn’t personal, I’ll even leave the alarms switched off for you on my way out,” Webster replied, all three paintings in his arms as he walked towards the delivery bay exit. “Call it a courtesy, from one professional to another.”

Joe cussed him out as he walked away and then took a few steadying breaths and slipped the picks from his sleeve. Webster might think highly of the quality of his cuffs, but Joe had yet to come across a pair he couldn’t get out of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
> _“Fancy seeing you here.”_
> 
> _“I could say the same.”_


	2. Episode 2 - Business and Treasure

**_Berlin - November 2015_ **

 

Joe had felt he was overdue a job in Germany for a while. He tried to spend at least a few weeks out of every year in Germany or Austria to keep his language skills sharp but for the last two years he’d found himself repeatedly drawn to Austria by easy mark after easy mark that he’d have been foolish to resist, still he didn’t want to risk developing an accent he couldn’t shake if he needed to.

He owned an apartment in Berlin, which had been sustained by an accommodating building custodian who managed the Air BnB rentals that provided Joe with a steady stream of legitimate income from the place which was paid into a bank account that had no links to his less than legal earnings.

He also received mail there.

The building manager tossed out all of the obvious junk mail and fliers but Joe’s box was close to overflowing when he visited and the first task upon arriving was sorting through everything he’d missed. Joseph Wayne, semi-reclusive international businessman, got sent a lot of credit cards. Also, either he’d pissed off somebody who had his address while using that I.D or had indulged in a particularly wild drunken night with one of the aforementioned credit cards because he also received several subscriptions to a quite varied range of pornography.

Ninety percent of everything he received went directly into the recycling bin, to be handled by a brilliantly comprehensive service that he always missed when back in the states, but sometimes he uncovered a few gems. Free samples were always nice, sure Joe could just buy aftershave instead of receiving it in tiny one-use packets but this way he got to try different kinds to what he’d usually buy even if he wasn’t sure why anybody would want the one that smelt like hot-dogs, and while most promotional materials were thrown away by the manager before they got to him, up to date pizza coupons were always a gift.

Of particular interest though, were the few pieces of personal mail he received. This time, an invitation to a very exclusive party there in Berlin from a contact Joe had once made while casing the British Museum who had recently taken the post of curator at a fancy modern art gallery right in Berlin. It was to celebrate... well that part was unclear. Joe suspected it might just be for the art crowd to celebrate being rich and trendy and get incredibly drunk at an open bar.

Joe didn't judge them one bit.

He had no interest in pulling a job at such short notice, Joe liked to plan not just smash the nearest glass case and grab whatever was inside, nor was he interested in cutting his Berlin stay short by drawing the attention of local law enforcement so soon after his arrival, but it never hurt to take a good look around a gallery and pick up the hottest art gossip. Nobody blabbed like drunk people blabbed and at events like this people all but handed out maps to futures scores.

Joe was going to a party.

First though, sleep.

 

*

 

Sixteen hours of sleep later, he jumped in the shower and enjoyed that fact that Joseph Wayne was the sort of man to have a waterfall shower and an impressive array of side jets and fancy accessories with which to thoroughly erase any remnants of recycled aeroplane air.

The key to an event like this was to look the part. Sure, he had an invitation this time rather than needed to pickpocket one on his way in, but once he was inside things would go smoother if he seemed like he belonged.

Easy enough, since Joseph Wayne happened to have excellent fashion sense, perfectly suited for the mixture of high-class formality and creative defiance of the stifling confines of traditional formal-wear. A glance in the mirror assured him that he was definitely going to have a good time as well as gather useful information that night and before he left he took the time to make sure all the sketchier magazines were slipped out of sight and the bed was neatly made just in case he didn’t come back alone. Joe's experience had taught him that if you wanted something you should be prepared for when you got it —only the stupidest thieves didn't have a plan for their takes— and the rule was fairly applicable in other areas of life too.

He'd been too tired coming off the plane to really appreciate the car he'd rented, his mind entirely on getting to his apartment and the king-sized bed within, but en route to the party he luxuriated in control over the smooth German engineering purring under his hands. Joe has never been keen on valet parking, it was like a candy store for car thieves, but in this case he handed his keys over because everybody else was doing it and it wasn’t the moment to make a scene — anyway, it was a rental car so if there were some enterprising car thieves in the area it wasn’t his problem.

A flash of the invite got him through the front door and though he didn’t see any faces he recognised it was easy enough to envelope himself in the mingling guests. It wasn’t where he belonged but Joe could certainly enjoy dabbling when it meant a glass of strong champagne in one hand and the crowd flitting about him was made up of beautiful women flaunting their assets in avant-garde cocktail dresses and handsome young men in suits that their bodies were almost begging to be freed from. It helped that the gallery was one he could enjoy for its own sake, the art of a quality that made him sure he’d be back at some point or another to claim a few pieces for his personal collection — he might even purchase a few to support the fledglings among the artists and provide an easy cover for his presence.

Joe circulated and let himself enjoy the party, eyeing the security only in the same casual way he might note the decor or the weather — interesting, and maybe useful for later but not of any pressing importance. He wandered deeper into the gallery where the party was in full swing then was halted by an unexpected sight.

It had been six months since he’d last seen those features but Joe rarely forgot a face - those sorts of slips got a person killed in his business.

Kenyon Webster, who had swanned into the Westing-Anderson gallery in a cheap suit with a fake badge and stolen Joe’s paintings right out from under him, leaving him in the uncomfortable position of firstly, having to get out of the handcuffs Webster had left him in and, secondly, having to explain to the buyer he’d had lined up that Joe wouldn’t be selling the paintings after all. Going back on deals, even unofficial ones, was bad business and while that particular contact wasn’t the sort to go for violent revenge when denied a whim, Webster hadn’t known that when he’d left Joe hanging in the wind.

Webster hadn’t seen Joe, was busy leaning eagerly towards a sculpture, the people on either side of him hanging on his every word as he gesticulated elegantly. He’d shed every inch of the mousy Interpol persona: the suit he was wearing now had clearly been tailored to flatter, still creased but in a way that suggested glamorous party hopping rather than overwork, and the grease was gone from his hair, letting it fall instead in glossy dark curls as he flashed a bright, easy grin towards the girl on his right.

Joe’s hands curled into fists. While he wasn’t here on business it would be reckless to go over there and confront Webster about what he’d done in Boston because that would mean risking other party goers finding out about Boston, but Joe suspected it might be worth the trouble. Joe had a general rule about not damaging beautiful things, but presented with the opportunity to punch Webster’s teeth in, he found he might be willing to bend that rule. Especially since Webster or whatever his real name was had no compunctions about taking a goddamn knife to million-dollar artwork which Joe objected to even if the paintings in question had been hideous. There was nothing he could do about the job now, the buyer was long gone and bringing it up to anybody would involve admitting that he’d been there and been duped which was unbearable, but he couldn’t let it go, not when Webster was standing there with the same stupid smug face that had sneered down at Joe and left him handcuffed on the cold gallery floor.

Joe snatched two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, let his most charming smile settle on his face and weaved his way through the crowd until he was at Webster’s side.

“Hey doll!” he cried, making the greeting as familiar as he knew how and pressing one of the glasses into Webster’s hand in a manner that forced Webster into the unenviable position of accepting it and therefore Joe's company, or dropping it and making a scene. “You’ve made new friends and you haven’t introduced me?” he turned to the women Webster was talking with, kissing each of their hands in turn. “Joe Wayne, pleasure to meet you.”

For a moment Webster’s smile flickered as he looked between Joe and the women uncertainly, but then he regrouped, exactly what Joe would expect from somebody cocky enough to impersonate an interpol agent, and introduced the women in turn. His German was obnoxiously flawless, although his accent would never pass for native Joe could easily have believed him to be a resident if he didn’t know better. From somebody else it would have been impressive, as it was, it just made Joe seethe more.

“You don’t mind if I steal him away for a few minutes, do you ladies?” Joe asked, then sealed the deal with a wink and the addition of, “We need a little private conversation.” The women giggled, offering hasty hopes to see them again before the party was over or perhaps at an after-party, before slipping away into the crowd. Joe turned to face Webster fully, trusting the noise of the crowd to mask their conversation as he said, “Fancy seeing you here.”

The smile lingered on Webster’s face, he’d still look like any party guest having a good time if somebody happened to look their way, but his blue eyes were ice cold as he said, “I could say the same.”

“Yeah, I guess it must be a bit of a shock for you to see me after you left me to take the fall for your shit in Boston,” Joe hissed.

“Take the fall while handcuffed to the rail and with none of the prize?” Webster rolled his eyes. “Even if you hadn’t found a way out of there by morning and you could have represented yourself in court that still would have been an easy win. You never had anything to worry about.”

“And what about my outstanding warrants?”

“Oh, you’ve been caught before?” Webster said dismissively, like he didn’t know pretty much everybody involved in their sort of work had brushed up against the law at least a few times. “Well that’s your own problem.”

Joe could hit him, could sock him right in the face here in front of all of these people at the party. It was tempting. He could imagine the crack of bone, the way that blood would gush from Webster nose to stain his shirt, the way people would stare at him and how Joe could walk away and leave him bleeding and if he was really lucky the bone wouldn’t set straight and Joe’s revenge would be a permanent mark on his face. But it wasn’t enough. Other than a few bruises from being tackled and some handcuff scrapes, the harm Webster had dealt him hadn't been physical. No, if Joe wanted real revenge, appropriate revenge, then he needed to humiliate Webster. Joe wanted to leave him knowing the feeling of being tricked and screwed over, left to dig himself out of mess of somebody else's design.

And Joe took what he wanted.

Generally he preferred time to plan before attempting anything risky but he knew himself well enough to know didn't really need to work at being a massive annoyance. Maybe all the satisfaction he dreamed of was a long shot, but he could certainly ruin Webster's night and if he was smart about it he could do it in a way that would make Webster look foolish in front of the party and this time Joe would be the one tossing about smirks and condescending remarks. Whatever he was here for Joe was going to make sure Webster didn’t get it and that he knew who had come out on top this time.

He wrapped his arm around Webster's waist, grinning when the other man glared at him.

"What are you doing?" Webster hissed.

"Well, those lovely ladies you just introduced me to think that we're... close," Joe explained. "You hardly want them to think you were a liar now would you?"

Webster spluttered and Joe laughed. He'd never been much inclined towards the type of manipulations and elaborate deceptions that Webster had used for his Interpol cover, but he found that sheer force of personality and other people's need to cling to social convention often worked just as well in many situations. “What, you don’t want to have a good time with me?” he asked.

“I don’t even know you,” Webster said, as if that was important.

“What does that have to do with anything? I can be nice to you, and basically the only thing I know about you is that you’re a liar,” Joe pointed out.

“Well the only thing I know about you is that you were gullible enough to believe it,” Webster snapped. “I mean, that’s not even how Interpol works! They’re liaisons not the international super-cops.”

Yes, and Joe had already spent plenty of time kicking himself for not seeing how obviously bullshit that story was but he didn’t need Webster rubbing it in. “Well, they certainly aren’t thieves,” he snapped back. “And by the way doll, pretending to be Interpol? A dead giveaway that you’re small time.” There was no way the Westing-Andersons hadn’t kicked up a fuss after they found their prized paintings gone and after all of Webster’s assistance and then his sudden disappearance the first place they’d turn would be his alleged superiors. A real player would know better that to draw that kind of attention, especially when there was no way it wouldn’t be taken as baiting.

“Whereas mopping floors is the mark of a high-flying criminal mastermind?” Webster muttered.

Nobody had ever called Joe a mastermind before, though he liked to think they would if there were any one person who knew the full extent of what he’d pulled off, but he’d take it. “Subtlety,” he suggested. “You lack it. Galleries will keep hiring security and maintenance guys until the end of time, whereas by now the whole Eastern seaboard will have heard what happened to the Westing-Andersons and be appropriately suspicious next time somebody approaches them like you did.”

“Well, it’s fortunate that I have have more than one trick in my repertoire,” Webster said haughtily. “And the suspicion is good, it discourages imitation.”

Joe couldn’t help his snort, the champagne tickling his nose as it went the wrong way. “You think you’re enough of a somebody that you’d have to worry about copycats?” he said incredulously.

A dark look flickered over Webster’s face. There was a story there, Joe could tell, and it might be useful to get out of Webster, something that can be used against him, but it didn’t seem like he was interested in sharing because he quickly diverted the conversation to asking Joe’s opinion of a particularly bland piece being displayed that was basically just a copy of one of the less famous bits of Banksy’s graffiti —hardly cutting edge anymore himself— translated and copied onto canvas.

He stuck to Webster like glue as they moved through the party. Joe didn’t know why Webster was here, but it was fun to get in his way. Of course, to the other guests they passed, Joe was the picture of solicitousness.

“Caviar, doll?”

Webster grudgingly accepted the tiny caviar covered cracker that Joe offered and popped the whole thing into his mouth, chewed with an inelegance that Joe thought jarred with the persona Webster had been using for the party, before he said, “Why do you keep calling me that?”

Joe shrugged. “It was the first thing I thought of back in Boston when you said you were called Ken. Reminded me of the dolls - Secret Agent Barbie rescuing her sidekick from the bad guy about to throw him in the volcano,” he explained. At least, that was how the stories always went when his sisters played with dolls. “And now you’re all cleaned up you even look the part, all prettied up with that megawatt smile. All you need is somebody to play with you.”

Webster scowled, which kind of ruined the effect. “It was Kenyon. And you’re not as witty as you think you are, so quit it.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Well then you'd better give me something better to call you.”

For a moment Webster frowned, visibly weighing up his options, then he shrugged and said, “David Webster, though everybody here thinks it’s David Bradbury.”

“Really Webster?” Joe asked. Reusing surnames across different identities wasn’t his style, but then again he was always Joe or Joseph to save on confusion so maybe Webster just figured that sticking to an identity tied to the one he’d been using when they’d met was simpler.

“Yes, really David Webster,” Webster said.

Joe looked at him dubiously. "Because you could have just lied," he said. “You do that.”

"I'm not stupid, I can see that you're a professional,” Webster replied, voice sharpening with exasperation. It was delightful how easy it was to get under his skin. “Even my choice of lie would give something away to you, so I may as well get to the point."

“If you say so,” Joe said, slightly awed by the arrogance of Webster thinking Joe would care about the deeper meanings behind his choices in aliases.

They walked in silence for a few moments before Webster huffed impatiently and said, “Well. You have my name, now what’s yours?”

“Here you keep calling me Joe Wayne, because you’re smart enough to know I’ll fuck you up if you blab about this cover I.D,” Joe said. Perhaps it was a little over-aggressive since Webster had —foolishly— shared his name without securing any sort of promise from Joe, but he enjoyed the Joe Wayne I.D and he’d hate to have to drop it. At the same time, as much as he disliked Webster there was a part of Joe that did want him to who he was dealing with, if only for the satisfaction of having Webster know who’d bested him when Joe pulled off his revenge. “Otherwise you can call me Lieb.”

Webster raised his eyebrows sharply. “Really, you insist on getting my name then tell me to call you 'dear'?”

“I didn't insist upon shit, I'd have gladly kept on calling you doll-face,” Joe retorted. He considered correcting Webster's misunderstanding, but honestly Joe preferred anonymity even if he didn't insist upon it and if David was going to be an ass, well Joe could play at that game and win.

Webster scowled and picked up his pace, as if he could possibly shake Joe that easily.

Joe trailed after him and did his best to force Webster to engage in civil conversation about the art. He found that Webster’s thoughts, or at least the ones he was espousing as part of his present persona, oscillated between views startlingly similar to Joe’s own and opinions that were both ridiculous and objectively terrible. When Webster complimented a particularly hideous abstract urban landscape he wondered briefly if Webster was colour-blind, or affecting to be so, because there was simply no other justification for thinking it anything other than an eyesore.

“I wanna see more than just what’s been picked out to impress party guests,” Joe decided. “These are mostly okay for show pieces but creaming off the top hardly gives a real idea of the collection.”

“Of course the highlights don’t show the full collection,” Webster said, voice dripping unnecessary condescension. “It’s so people like them,” he waved towards the party guests, “Can have a taste of the art and show how good their taste is without actually having to go to any effort to find works and form their own opinions.

“Right, and it’s boring,” Joe said. He’d kind of wanted Webster to argue with him not make a statement he couldn’t avoid agreeing with, but oh well. He could have had a good time drinking and socialising and ignoring the art, but since he’d been dragged into this conversation with Webster… “Let’s play a little game.” He nodded to the archway on the right, technically closed off but a flimsy guide rope hardly counted. If they didn’t want people in there then there would have been a door at the minimum and maybe even a lock if they actually cared. The sign above said it led to the craft wing, one of the few areas not open to guests that night. To those ardent admirers of fine art wandering the main halls it might not have been of interest, but craft encompassed many things, metalworking and jewellery among them.

“Why would I go with you?” Webster said, because somehow he hadn’t yet noticed that he was stuck with Joe for the night.

“Because otherwise I’ll know you’re chicken and not as good of a thief as you want me to think you are.”

“Really?” Webster said. “I don’t have anything to prove to you, Lieb.”

“Oh yeah,” Joe said. “I guess it’s because I already know that you don’t have the guts. All that Interpol bullshit just to turn the alarms off because you didn’t have the balls to go up against anything with active security.”

“There’s nothing cowardly about being smart,” Webster snapped. “After all, which of us actually got the paintings?”

Asshole. As if that proved anything. “All I hear is excuses.”

He could see the way Webster’s jaw tightened and he looked like he was sucking on a lemon as he said, “What sort of game do you have in mind?”

“You and me, the craft wing,” he said. “Whoever gets the best take is the winner.”

Webster wrinkled his nose. “Smash and grab isn’t really my style,” he admitted, and the fact he was thinking in terms as sloppy as that already told Joe he could win this. “And who decides what’s best?”

“Highest value,” Joe corrected. Most interesting or beautiful would be better, but given how they’d talked about art there was little likelihood that Webster wouldn’t argue wrongly about aesthetics and Joe didn’t have the patience for that sort of complication that night. “And getting caught or setting off an alarm is an automatic loss.”

“Fine!” Webster said, and didn’t even look around before striding over to the archway and swinging a leg up to step over the barrier.

Joe chased after him and wondered how much Webster had had to drink before their encounter because he hadn’t expected it to be quite that easy to convince him. He didn’t hesitate to cross the barrier, if he was caught there he’d be in the exact same amount of trouble as he was getting Webster into but he’d be in a different line of work if he worried that much about risks. His biggest concern was there was always the possibility that Webster would draw Joe in and then abandon the game, decide that it was too much trouble, hope that Joe would get caught in his own attempt, and just leave. Joe didn’t think he would though. No, their brief encounters had been enough to reveal Webster had an ego and he’d need to prove to Joe that Boston wasn’t a fluke.

Down the hall it became clear the crafts wing was more expansive than it’s meagre signage suggested, the hallway opening up with doorways to further sub-galleries devoted to different particular specialities.

“Fifteen minutes tops,” Joe called out to Webster, who was walking through the archway marked ‘tools’ because the game was no fun if dragged on. If Webster objected to him adding terms after they’d begun to play he said nothing, just disappeared into the darkened chamber. A stupid move. There was no way the highest value items would be found under the heading of tools.

Joe turned away, walking through the entrance marked jewellery which was far more likely to suit his purposes.

The automatic lights had been deactivated in this wing which aided surreptitious movement but meant that he was navigating by the pale green lights of the fire escape signs, having to get up close and personal with the display cases to properly assess their contents and find something that would win his game.

His eye caught on a necklace. It was a perfect example of master craftsmanship, intricate curlicues of filigree, but there was no case around it and the pedestal wasn’t even alarmed, the bulk of it was silver, and he’d never heard of it, all clear signs that despite it’s beauty it was worthless by the damn terms he himself had chosen.

He could take it anyway, keep it to himself and find something else alongside it with which to beat Webster but every snatch heightened the risk and proving his superiority as a thief was his priority, not the take itself.

He shook his head and moved onto the next room.

It took him three to find something which suited his purposes. A wrist cuff, though it was big enough to cover half a person’s forearm, tacky as hell but covered in diamonds that meant though it was hardly master craftsmanship Joe was pretty confident it was the most expensive thing in the room. Plus this pedestal had visible alarm wiring on it. Nothing fancy, it was the work of a few minutes to cut the wires and deactivate it, but clearly the gallery thought it had value.

He inspected the stand more closely for discrete alarms but when his cursory search turned up nothing he lifted the cover and plucked the cuff from it’s holdings. It was a little bulky to fit inside his jacket but Joe was an expert and concealing stolen goods and so he made do.

Webster was already waiting in the hallway when Joe stepped out, reclining elegantly against the wall like he wasn’t in a restricted area and with no idea that he’d already lost.

He glanced down at his watch when he saw Joe. “Cutting it a little close aren’t you?” he remarked and Joe rolled his eyes.

“Being hasty isn’t anything to brag about,” he grumbled and was just about to set off back to the main party, he could prove his victory outside where there was less risk of being caught obviously out of place, when he heard footsteps coming down the hall, seconds away from catching them both where they shouldn’t be.

He could try ducking back into the exhibition rooms but if the steps belonged to a guard he might check there and there was also the risk of Webster giving him away. No, some fast strategising brought him to the conclusion that the best play here was to railroad Webster into being a part of his plan and to try and pass themselves off as party guests who’d unwittingly strayed from the thick of things, oblivious to where they were, rely on the fact that if it was a guard they’d likely be too bored and underpaid to investigate further.

Across the hallway, Webster had also stilled at the sound of the steps but instead of attempting to be discrete he laughed, too loud in the empty corridor. They might have been on the verge of getting caught but that was no reason to court trouble and Joe shushed him but instead of shutting up Webster crossed the hallway and stood face to face with Joe for a moment before he dropped to the ground, knees hitting the parquet flooring with a dull thud.

“What the fuck?” Joe hissed as Webster pressed his face towards Joe's crotch. He tried to push Webster away, but Webster just turned his head to press back into Joe’s hand as if he was responding to a caress. Joe cursed because as satisfying as it was to see the smug bastard on his knees, Joe was only interested if it was on his terms and now was neither the time or the place —not to mention he was pretty sure Webster had lost his mind, especially when Webster popped the button of his fly and caught hold of the zipper with his teeth, a sight which made Joe hand freeze on Webster’s shoulder instead of pushing him away, and then Webster’s eyes cut sideways and Joe followed the line of his gaze and saw the security guard standing frozen at the end of the corridor.

It was too late to hide.

Joe waited for him to sound the alarm, but instead the guard just stared at them. Even at a distance it was clear he had got a baby face, which along with his wide-eyed stare marked him out as a wet behind the ears rookie, probably more used to corralling rowdy drunks in cheap bars and naive enough to be shocked by the shenanigans that went on at high class parties.

And damn but they were giving him something to be shocked by. Adrenaline and fear had always got Joe's heart racing, the thrill of danger thrilling him in other ways too, but Webster nuzzling his dick in a convenient and terribly convincing feeling imitation of a drunkly overeager lover was rapidly turning a small spark into a rather more significant problem.

Though it was a small relief to his dignity that at least he wasn’t the only one affected as out of the corner of his eye Joe saw the guard reach down, visibly adjusting himself through his uniform pants before he walked over to them.

“E-ex-excuse me,” he stammered, and Webster ignored him but Joe could hardly pretend not to have heard, even if the guy was struggling to look him in the eye, gaze instead fixed on the back of Webster’s head. “I… You can’t be back here,” he said, “And you can’t… um…”

The poor kid had gone so red it looked like his head was about to explode. There was no way he could be even vaguely focused on the prospect of them doing anything other than what it looked like they were about to do.

“Aw, c’mon buddy,” Joe said, making a show of resisting because there was no way anybody would do anything else if they found themselves in his position for real. “There’s nobody back here and …mmmhmm David!” he broke off, let his hips shift a little for veracity’s sake, then smirked at the guard. “We’ll be gone by the next time you come around, this won’t take long, his mouth is—”

“I’m… I… I have to insist,” the guard said, although Joe was pretty sure it was paining him to do so.

Joe sighed, making a show of annoyance before he gripped Webster by the back of his neck, guiding him upwards. “C’mon doll, we gotta do this somewhere else,” he coaxed, shooting the guard a glare as he did so.

Webster followed slowly, stumbling into Joe in an excellent imitation of drunkenness as he climbed to his feet, leaning heavily on Joe.

Joe stared the guard down and the man ducked his head. Joe was pretty sure the guy ought to escort them out of there to make sure they didn’t pick up right where they’d left off as soon as he was gone but apparently he’d taken all that he could face because he scurried off down the halls with barely a glance over his shoulder to check they were following orders.

Webster kept on clinging to Joe’s side as the footsteps faded down the hall and Joe couldn’t help but prickle a little at the implications of his performance. It might have been his way of justifying the sloppy public misbehaviour but Joe had never had the slightest interest in getting up to anything like that with anyone so drunk they couldn’t keep their own feet under them unaided — if something like that was going to happen for real it would be because Joe was irresistible, plain and simple.

“Overkill much?” he hissed, shrugging Webster off once the footsteps had fulled faded.

Webster shrugged innocently, looking for all the world as if he hadn’t been all over Joe’s dick moments before. "Kissing as a distraction only works in the movies, but people are so uncomfortable if they think they've walked in on sex.”

"Given how long he stood there I'm not sure uncomfortable is the right word for it." Joe was feeling pretty uncomfortable himself though, suddenly remembering all of the negatives of well fitted trousers. Fortunately Webster seemed uninterested in acknowledging the effect he’d had on Joe, although he could hardly be unaware given just how up close and personal he’d just been. “But hey, since I’m pretty sure he’s looking for a bathroom to take care of his reaction to that little show, we should be able make it back to the party before he starts talking about it and all of the rest of the security team start checking us out.”

Webster bit his lip, visibly thoughtful, Joe had to avert his eyes sharply anyway. He wasn’t some hair trigger kid to get hot and bothered by a little thing like that usually, but their brief encounters had never given him a reason to look at Webster’s mouth and now Joe was noticing his lips were rosy and plush and given where they’d been just a few moments previously he thought he can hardly be blamed for imagining how they’d look stretched wide open and put to good use. Joe had a plan and he still wanted to see Webster’s pretty face wrecked and defeated, it’s just that suddenly being confronted with the reminder that there were more ways of doing that than with just his fists was playing hell on his focus.

Joe swallowed, reaching into his pocket for a tangible reminder of what he’d been doing before they’d been rudely interrupted. He had his victory in hand, and the next step was to get out of the party and claim it for real. The champagne was catching up with him and it was kind of hard to plot when most of his blood has abandoned his brain for his dick but he wasn’t some B-character in a James Bond movie and he wasn’t going commit self-sabotage by getting distracted by something as simple as a pretty face.

They walked back towards the main rooms of the party but Joe suddenly wasn’t in the mood for drinking and mingling. Given what was in his pocket it would be too risky to come back here anytime soon so there was no need to scope out more of the security. Somebody would notice the missing jewellery in the morning and then there would be questions and depending on if the guard talked then—

Fuck. He realised with a jolt that if the guard did bring up what he’d seen it would be Joe’s face he remembered. Webster had positioned himself in such a way that the guard had never got a good look at his features, just gawked at him from behind. And while Joe had him beat tonight, Boston suggested Webster was too good at what he did for that to have been a lucky coincidence.

Joe couldn’t stay, not at the party certainly and it would probably be a good idea not to hang around the city either, no matter how annoyed he felt at the prospect of leaving when he’d barely arrived.

He turned to Webster, who was eyeing the exits too.

“Time to get outta here?” he said, just loud enough that the people around them would certainly overhear.

Webster looked startled to be asked instead of simply wrapping up their game and going their separate ways, but then clearly realised it would reinforce the narrative they’d already constructed with the guard and explain away their exit.

“Sure,” he said, with a smirk that was positively wicked, like maybe he thought he was going to win this, and this time it was his arm wrapped around Joe as they weaved through the crowds until they stepped out into the cold night. The valet offered to call and have Joe’s car brought around but Joe waved the guy off impatiently, reclaiming his keys so he and Webster could walk together to the privacy of the parking lot.

“Alright,” Joe said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Webster rolled his eyes, but reached into his jacket and pulled out a thin but intricately made silvery chain.

The necklace — gorgeous, perfect, and almost certainly worth less than half of what the tacky diamond covered thing Joe had lifted was valued at.

He pulled out his own prize and smirked, although he doubted the victory reached his eyes, “I win,” he said, voice defiant because it was true by the terms they’d agreed and never mind the fact Webster had the superior prize in reality. He dumped the cuff back in his pocket and tried to hide his frustration — he’d vaguely thought to have the chance to go back for the necklace under better circumstances, but now Webster had stolen that hope out from under him.

“I guess you did,” Webster said with a sheepish smile. “But this isn’t my kind of crime, I realised that as soon as we walked in. I deal in people not alarms.”

Joe blinked, startled by the easy concession. And by just how badly Webster had chosen his piece despite the impediment. “But why that?” he couldn’t help but ask. “It’s clearly not that expensive, not compared to the less secure shit in that gallery.”

“It’s beautiful,” Webster said. “Isn’t that more important than winning?”

“Huh,” Joe said. Stupid, really. Really stupid. But he understood the impulse even if he had better self control than that.

“Oh, and by the way you have a...” Webster gestured incoherently.

Joe scrubbed the back of his hand over his cheek but Webster shook his head. He wiped at the other side instead but Web just rolled his eyes. “No, here.” He said, and he stepped close and smoothed his thumb over Joe’s jaw. The touch was light but Web’s skin was rougher than expected - he must do more work with his hands than any fancy hand-cream could erase.

This close Joe could smell his aftershave — expensive and French if Joe was any judge

Webster wasn’t looking as the dirt, his eyes were fixed on Joe’s, almost uncomfortably intent, but Joe didn’t fluster easily and perhaps now he had his victory over Webster beating the guy’s face in wasn’t necessary. Maybe, now Webster seemed willing to acknowledge that Joe was the better thief, it would be so bad to take him back to the apartment and show him exactly what else Joe was good at too.

Before he could made his mind up Webster pulled back, moment broken as he smiled and said, “That’s better, but I ought to go.”

Joe could ask him to stay, could offer him a ride, but did he really want that kind of trouble? Not James Bond, he reminded himself, not getting stitched up by a pretty face.

“See ya around,” he said instead, because though it was a wide world and there was plenty of room for two thieves not to cross paths, twice was a coincidence but also halfway to a pattern.

Webster smiled softly and then turned away and moments later vanished down one of the dark alleys off of the lot leaving Joe with a racing heart…

…and lighter pockets.

It took Joe a few seconds to realise his jacket was no longer being tugged down by the weight of diamonds, but when he did, he swore, unsure what pissed him off more - that Webster had done that to him or that somehow, despite all of his smarts and experience, Joe had fallen for literally the oldest trick in the book from a guy he already knew was a thief. No, a con-man, whose trap Joe had just walked right into.

Webster was already out of sight and Joe didn’t hold out much hope of chasing after him, instead he shoved his fists into his pockets—

—and brushed over something in the bottom of the pocket Webster had stolen the wrist cuff from. A pocket which should have been empty.

Uncurling his hand, Joe felt something like thin chain slipping between his fingertips. He lifted it out and stared.

The necklace. The one piece in the gallery he’d lingered over with sincere interest instead of just assessing it’s value and it’s likelihood of ensuring his victory. The piece Webster had taken from the gallery because he’d called it too beautiful to resist.

The moonlight glinted off the silver as Joe frowned at the chain in his hands. Was this a victory? Webster had stolen the more expensive piece from him, but he’d left the one Joe valued higher in return. He’d got what he wanted but not in the way he’d intended and somehow although he’d won the competition by the terms he’d set that victory hadn’t come with the logical accompaniment of Webster defeated.

He slipped the necklace back into his pocket.

Maybe one day he’d get a chance at a rematch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
>  
> 
> _"I don’t want an unknown element fucking up my plans.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“So don’t have an unknown element, have a two-pronged attack.”_


	3. Episode 3 - Honour Among Thieves

**_Oxford, England - February 2016_ **

 

England in February was terrible. The grey skies, the chilly damp, the constant relentless rain, and the people who wanted to complain about the weather but then got annoyed if Joe complained too much or too forcefully because apparently only English people were allowed to acknowledge the fact their country was objectively awful.

Had he any choice in the matter he'd be anywhere else.

But he didn’t.

Because no matter how many mountains of money or art he accumulated, or how well he developed his skills, he couldn’t buy or break his way out of everything.

Early in his career Joe had made a serious mistake. He didn't feel ashamed of it, everybody made rookie mistakes when they were young, nobody started out perfect and the learning curve of crime was steep.

In a way he'd been lucky. He could have ended up in rotting prison or dead, instead he'd ended up in debt.

He'd never been quite sure why Sink had saved him and over the years he'd adjusted to having that debt hanging over his shoulders, even if he didn't like it. The longer time passed without it being called in the less Joe thought of it, quietly convinced Sink had simply forgotten about the arrogant kid he'd directed to a getaway car all those years ago when the guys Joe had been running with against Sink had screwed Joe over and abandoned him take the fall for an offence in a turf war Joe hadn't even realised they were involved in. He thought it might just have been a power trip, Sink taking somebody in the employ of one of his enemies (even an unwittingly) and turning them to his own side, and perhaps he didn't need anything that Joe could offer - he had his own people and commanded more than one dangerous crew. Joe wasn't small fry anymore but he wasn't on Sink's level and hadn't had any interest if playing those sorts of high stakes games.

And then he'd got the email.

Sink hadn't forgotten.

Finally, after more than ten years, he wanted Joe to pay back his debt.

It was a request Joe couldn't refuse.

If he'd tried to run or duck out of it he was certain Sink would have him hunted across continents, not because Joe was especially important to him but simply to make the point that nobody reneged on their deals with him and got away with it. Anyway, as much as Joe hated the bargain he'd never been the kind of guy to squirm out of his debts and he wasn't about to start. He preferred owing nothing to nobody, and if doing a job for Sink got him a little closer to a clean slate then he could bear up under the English rain.

He didn't have to like the fact that the job brought him to Oxford though.

If Sink had to send him to the UK it could have at least been somewhere with a bit of interest like London or someplace he could easily blend in like one of the rougher northern cities, not a dismal little pit of spoilt, over-educated rich kids. He just wanted to find a slightly seedy diner or cafe where he could hole up and plan undisturbed except for a continual flow of coffee and fried food and instead all that was on offer was street after street of artisanal yogurt shops, tea rooms, and yoga studios.

It was wrong. A place populated by so many college students should be overflowing with cheap booze and ready caffeine, or at least people intelligent enough to see that kale smoothie detoxes were bullshit.

But the Earl of Oxford lived just outside of the city and his son attended the university and therefore this was where Joe needed to be, because Sink claimed a source of his had revealed that Earl de Vere had somehow got his hands on the Florentine Diamond and Sink wanted it for himself badly enough to call in Joe’s debt and send him to steal it.

Diamonds weren’t Joe’s usual sort of target, he preferred aesthetics for his personal collection and when he was stealing for profit the best targets were those that would be easy and inconspicuous to sell — a lost diamond was the opposite of that. The prestige did appeal though, and on the plus side, it would be a lot easier to move than some of the other legendary missing valuables Sink could have sent him after. Given the man’s renowned love for statues Joe had been concerned about the prospect of him asking Joe to steal something cumbersome, sufficiently so that learning the target was a diamond which hadn’t been seen in over a century had seemed like a relief.

The longer he worked the job the more that relief faded though. De Vere’s security was good. Too good. It far exceeded normal rich person hoarding valuables security and Joe wondered if the man had something to hide or just paranoia issues. He wanted to know more, but getting Skinny to dig up information on the man would mean explaining why he was asking for it and Joe didn’t much want to share his messy history with Sink. So he was going it alone.

Getting in as staff was off the table, the de Veres employed entirely families and those families had often been employed by the de Vere estate for several generations like some Downton Abbey shit. Earl Fredrick de Vere himself was pretty reclusive, he seemed to spend his time with a very select circle of peers —and the real peerage sort of peers, not just people of similar income brackets— either at home or in the sort of exclusive clubs that you had to provide a family tree to even be considered for admission. The son, Andrew, seemed like the most probable weak-spot and Joe had been trawling social media to create a profile of the guy. The result seemed to be douche-bag of the highest order, lots of frat-boy-esque drunken incidents smoothed over by family money and connections, the arrogance which came with being raised to believe in his own social superiority, and Joe was pretty sure somebody had bought his way into the college because if he reflected then general standard of admission then Oxford’s reputation would be one of embarrassing ignorance.

Getting close to Andrew de Vere might well be his best in, but Joe wasn’t going to enjoy doing it. Hell, he still wasn’t even sure how. He could bullshit a persona to an extent, but de Vere’s social circle was founded on centuries of breeding and privilege and no matter how good of a show Joe put on he didn’t have the connections to make himself seem like anything other than an interloper. At best he might be able to pass himself off as being of a similar status in American circles and avoid the stigma of a social climber, but it was a long shot and that still left him with the problem of finding a way to integrate himself with the group.

He mulled over those thoughts as he walked around the city waiting for inspiration to strike, but the truth was he couldn’t do any more planning without caffeine and so he gave up wandering the streets in thought and stopped at the next cafe he saw. It looked as unbearably hipster-ish as most of the other places but it was at least mostly empty so Joe wouldn’t have to endure listening to too much witless nattering about up-cycling and deconstructed food.

He pushed the door open, gritting his teeth against the obnoxious tinkling of the bell, and scanned the menu chalked above the counter. There was a lot of leafy greens listed with things which shouldn’t have salad anywhere near them, but the coffees were sized small, medium, and large and that was good enough for him. There was only one person waiting by the till and Joe looked him over idly. The obnoxiously red skinny jeans, the scarf that was draped loosely about his shoulders instead of worn any way that might actually keep him warm, the cardigan with goddamn elbow patches - he looked every bit the college hipster and Joe wasn’t sure what had caught his attention (he was a grown-ass man with an interesting and varied social life, he didn’t usually feel the urge to stop and gawk at every nice ass he passed) but then the man took his order and turned and fucking hell… there were seven billion people in the world and Joe somehow ended up running into him for the third time?

David Webster clearly felt the stare because he looked around the room with a frown and when his gaze fell on Joe he rolled his eyes and mouthed, ‘Seriously?’ over the brim of his cup. From the front he still looked just like a pretentious college student, from the suspiciously green contents of his mug to his unshaven jawline. Webster could probably have walked into any professor’s office and sat down for a meeting with them and instead of looking out of place he’d just leave the professor feeling guilty for not remembering him from their classes. He acted just as bad as them too, swanning over to take a seat at the table Joe had picked out without caring at all that he hadn’t been invited and Joe thought it was pretty obvious he wouldn’t be welcome.

“I wouldn’t have guessed Oxford to be your kind of haunt,” Webster observed as he sat down. He was right but Joe bristled at the assumption all the same.

“Hey, lots of rich kids with too much education and not enough sense seems like a world of opportunities to me,” he said. Then, because he didn’t actually like the thought of Webster thinking he was the type to come just for the easy pickings, he added, “I’ve got a big job lined up.”

Webster stared at him intensely for a moment before he said, “Earl De Vere?”

Okay, what the actual fuck? Joe raised his eyebrows. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Webster said with a sigh so exasperated that Joe didn’t need to be told the bad news.

“You too?” he asked. Webster nodded. Joe shook his head. “You can’t. I’m calling dibs,” Joe said. That wasn’t generally how these things worked but fuck it, Web owed him for pinching Joe’s take out from under him after the months of work in Boston and for whatever the fuck he’d been playing at with that switch in Berlin. “He’s got a piece in his collection I’ve been contracted to supply, and this goes bigger than either of us so you’d better stay out of my way.”

Webster sipped his tea, looking thoughtful. “I don’t care about his collection,” he said finally. “Take what you want. I’m just after de Vere”

“Why?”

 Webster scowled and Joe was shocked by the bitterness in his tone as he said, “He screwed me.”

Joe looked Webster up and down and had to admit he couldn’t blame de Vere, junior or senior, if you could look past the stupid clothes Webster had one hell of a body. Though for the sake of his mind Joe chose to imagine it was the younger - still not appealing but at least not mentally scarring. “And do you like revenge on all your hook-ups?”

“I meant metaphorically,” Webster snapped, looking reassuring grossed out by the implication he’d had anything to do with either of the chinless wonders.

“Good for you,” Joe said. “If you don’t care about his collection then that’s all the more reason for you to get the fuck out of here and take your bullshit somewhere the hell away from me.”

“What I’m trying to say is that I don’t care how de Vere gets fucked over as long as it happens,” Webster said. “I don’t care what you take from him, he just needs to suffer, but there’s no reason we can’t both get what we want here.”

“So I do my job and he’ll suffer enough,” Joe said. The diamond was valuable, surely it would be a kick in the teeth for de Vere to lose.

Webster shook his head. “You said _a_ piece, that’s not enough. But I don’t mind you taking it as long as you don’t mess up my plans.”

Joe scowled. “Am I really supposed to believe that you think we can both go after this guy? Even if you don’t mess with me on purpose this time there’s too much risk of you getting in my way or doing something that’ll make things harder for me. What even is your play here?”

“I’m still working on that,” Webster admitted. “I’ll have to approach through the son, the Earl knows my face, but even if I can get him to trust me, I get the impression that his father doesn’t trust him.”

“Having seen the kid, I doubt he has access to anything valuable,” Joe admitted. “I wouldn’t trust him to be responsible for a pet rock. I’d bet he gets a generous allowance to piss about with but his daddy keeps a tight grip on the rest.”

“Shame he doesn’t just get bored of waiting for the inheritance and bump his father off,” Webster remarked acidly.

Joe gaped at him. Sure, there had been the brief moment he’d panicked and wondered if Web were a knife wielding serial killer, but further consideration had brought him to the conclusion that Webster didn’t have that sort of violence in him, he wouldn’t have tangled with him in Berlin if he’d still thought Webster was the type to make things bloody. “This guy screwed you how exactly?”

Webster opened his mouth, paused, ran his hands through his hair and then said, “He framed me.”

Joe nearly laughed. Of all the things. “Look who’s talking…”

“Oh, don’t pull that face,” Webster said. “I didn’t frame you, you weren’t even a fucking suspect in the Boston job, I kept an eye on the reports after the fact.”

“Still…”

“Still fucking nothing,” Webster said. “And it’s not just the frame job. It’s that he framed me for a sloppy heist when I’ve never have been that stupid, and he’s still got the goddamn paintings he pretended I took, the whole thing was an insurance scam so now he’s got the money and the artwork and my photo splashed all over a few dozen reports pinning me to a job a ten-year-old could have done better!”

Joe stared at him. Backstabbing and bullshit was part of the reality of the job but while vague on the details —how had de Vere done it, Joe wondered, how did he even know Webster- it was clear that Webster had a particular loathing of the man.

“O-kay… well, I actually came in here for coffee,” he said, pushing his chair back. The issue of Webster fucking up his attempt on the diamond still needed to be resolved, but his caffeine cravings were stronger than ever and were going to have to be seen to before he could even consider continuing this conversation.

"Sure. Actually, hold on!" Webster reached into his pocket and pulled out a slightly dog-eared card, "Here."

Joe looked at it. "Uh..."

"Loyalty points," Webster said. "Take it."

Joe wasn't sure he actually wanted to help Webster get free stuff, but hey, maybe he could use it against Web in the argument he expected was coming about how they were going to deal with the de Vere issue - a.k.a why Webster needed to give up his petty bullshit and let Joe get on with working the job. "Fine," he said, swiping the card from Webster's fingertips.

He mooched up the to counter and ended up stuck waiting behind an exhausted looking girl who seemed to be ordering about a dozen drinks to-go although Joe had no fucking clue how she thought she was going to manage to carry them out. When he got to the front of the line he ordered his coffee 'Black, six sugars' in the largest size they had and ignored the slightly scandalised look from the kid behind the counter. Joe had no time for enjoying the bitter flavour of boiling bean juice without any additions —he brought quite enough bitterness to the table through sheer force of personality— or for being judged by teenagers who were clearly trying to grow scruffy hipster beards but could only manage a patchy fuzz.

It took a few minutes but finally the coffee was in his hands, which on the plus side meant caffeine in his bloodstream but also meant going back to drill into Webster why there was no fucking way Joe was going to put up with Web going after his target at the same time as him again.

“Look,” he said when he sat down, deciding at least some token persuasion was best before he began the threats. “Why bother? You don’t need to be involved in this. You want de Vere messed with? Me taking his precious diamond will do that and it’ll be easier if you don’t get in the way.”

“One diamond?” Webster looked incredulous. “You must know what he has, one diamond isn’t enough, darling—”

Joe stared at him.

Webster continued unabashed, “—de Vere won’t be happy about it, maybe, but it’s hardly going to devastate him. Anyway, this is personal. When I’m done he’s going to have lost everything and he’s going to know why. If he thinks you did it then the whole message is lost.”

Joe kept staring. Darling? Then he realised: the misunderstanding in Berlin, when he’d told Web to call him Lieb and then declined to correct him when Web hadn’t realised he meant it as a name. And now Web had just translated that misunderstanding into English and was just going with it.

“Yeah well, you can’t,” Joe said.

Webster folded his arms. “Why?”

“I already said so,” Joe replied. “I’m calling dibs, and also because I have something specific I want not just general revenge.” He hasn’t been in a disagreement this stupid since his littlest sister was eight.

“And I still don’t see why we can’t do both,” Webster replied.

“Because I don’t want an unknown element fucking up my plans,” Joe said.

“So don’t have an unknown element,” Webster said. “Have a two-pronged attack.”

Joe paused, then set his mug down.

Collaboration…

It wasn’t the angle he’d been expecting Webster to take.

On one hand, helping Webster get his own revenge hardly helped Joe settle the score from Boston, but wanting to get him back for that paled in significance to how much Joe needed his debt to Sink off his shoulders.

“Go after the diamond together?”

“Go after de Vere together,” Webster confirmed. “Your diamond, my revenge, all in one job.”

Everything in Webster’s demeanour screamed sincerity in his wish to see de Vere fucked over and being able to come at de Vere from more than one direction would open up a lot of options for Joe and Webster might be the jump he needed to un-stall the planning. He’d have to be stupid to trust Webster, but he’d have to be stupid to entirely trust anybody in this line of work and he could still acknowledge there were advantages to not always working solo. It was a matter of protecting himself against the risks another person brought and that was something Joe had put plenty of thought into before - big groups could get big scores but it generally wasn’t worth the potential for things to go wrong. The more people involved the higher the odds of somebody cold feet or people getting greedy or just plain stupid and the harder it was to keep a close enough eye on things to see a betrayal coming.

Webster alone Joe could handle.

“My plan,” he said.

“With full disclosure,” Webster said. “I don’t do work where I’m kept in the dark.”

That’s fair. Joe nods.

“And veto.”

That’s not so okay. “I’m not going to work with you if you’re going to bail on me part way through because you get squeamish.”

“If you’re honest about the plan from the start why would I?” Webster said with a shrug. “I just want to make sure it’s a decent plan before I commit, that you’re not going to get me arrested.”

Oh, like Joe would be stupid enough to try that kind of amateur hour bullshit. If he let the cops get Webster the chances were the first thing Web would do would be flip on him. Joe wasn’t the type to rat people out, but even he would consider it if he thought somebody had deliberately fucked him over like that, and he doubted Webster had half his integrity. “Alright,” he said, extending his hand across the table. “We take him down together.” He could always cut Webster out later if he became a liability.

Webster reached out and shook his hand, lips curling into the same unsettling smirk Joe had seen in Boston. “Deal.”

“You have a cover already?” Joe asked, uncertain if the slightly ridiculous way Webster was dressed was part of a persona or a reflection of his genuine tastes.

Webster nodded. “Post-graduate student, literature. I had trouble deciding between the 1700-1830 focus or 1830-1914—”

“Why? It’s not like you have to actually study.”

Webster shot him a scandalised look. Joe shrugged. He’d put himself through some crap for covers before, but he didn’t see why Web would worry about being a good student - hell, nearly failing would probably be more likely endear him to somebody of Andrew de Vere’s academic standing.

“Whatever,” Joe said. “I can work with that. If you’re playing the good student I guess you have a pen?”

Webster reached into his jacket and pulled one out. No cheap, chewed on bic for him, and Joe was pretty sure it was Webster’s tastes not the persona’s which had led to the selection of the sleek Mont Blanc fountain pen he handed over.

Joe turned over his receipt and scrawled across the back: ‘07700 900352 - Joe Parker’ before handing both the receipt and the pen back to Webster. “What name are you using?”

“David Eliot - one L,” Webster said.

“Right, well just keep doing what you’ve been doing while I think about how we’re gonna do this,” Joe instructed. “Text me at some point and then I’ll let you know when I want to meet you.”

Webster nodded and Joe grabbed his coffee and chugged the remainder before walking out.

He had a lot to think about.

 

*

 

Having somebody else in on the con gave Joe a lot more options for the approach and even more options for how to proceed once they had an in. Those were then narrowed down a little by the fact he’d promised he’d help Webster sow chaos and revenge which meant a quick in and out to snatch the diamond was off the table. Well, not wholly off the table. Using Webster’s help to get in there and then breaking their deal was an option, especially since Joe was pretty sure Webster didn’t have the clout or connections to get back at him if he did, but Joe didn’t just maintain a reliable reputation because it was good business, he did it because that was the kind of man he’d been raised to be. It was one sort of crime to steal luxuries from rich people, it was another to renege on a bargain.

Anyway, Sink had given Joe the rundown on what there was to know about Earl de Vere before sending him out and the key point had been that de Vere had come by a whole lot of his own collection by commissioning thieves, which meant he knew a few things about the way the industry worked and would probably have precautions against most standard plays. That had been one of things slowing Joe down, but if Webster had a history with de Vere then it might well have been in his employ. It certainly made more sense than de Vere picking a random small-time thief to screw over. And if Webster had worked for de Vere then he could have inside information.

Joe grabbed his phone from the nightstand of the cheap room he’d rented to crash in for the duration of the job and scrolled through the contacts. Most of them were fake, just there to divert suspicion and make it look less like a burner on the off chance his phone ended up in prying hands; almost all of the rest were take-out places to save him the trouble of trying to cook on the single burner gas hob that was the main feature of the shitty kitchenette attached to his room. But about a third of the way down this list was ‘Eliot, David’ saved from the text Webster had sent him shortly after their cafe encounter.

Joe hit call.

The phone rang, once, twice — he always got so impatient waiting for people to answer, something about the sound of a ringing phone making time feel like it was passing impossibly slowly.

Finally ringing cut off and Webster answered with an annoyed hiss. “Of course you’d call while I was in class!”

“Why are you-?” No, never mind. “If you were that committed to pretending to be a good student you’d have turned your phone off,” Joe pointed out. “But you didn’t, because you’re not here to study literature, you’re here to help me take down de Vere. And you’re going to start by telling me everything you know about his security.”

“I don’t—”

Joe cut the lie off before it could start. “You worked for him, didn’t you?” he said. “I’m not dumb, it’s the only logical reason he’d have known enough about you to frame you specifically. So spill.”

“I…” Webster sighed. “It was a couple of years ago, when I was first starting out, so none of what I know is up to date and he’s the kind of person who was constantly upgrading his security. He mentioned once that he insisted on being talked through the method of every job pulled for him so that he could make sure his own security was defended against whatever tricks were used. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Yeah but he won’t be ready for anything run by more than one guy,” Joe pointed out.

“He’s hyper-vigilant, security obsessed,” Webster said, “What makes you think he wouldn’t be prepared?”

“Because ninety percent of stuff rumoured to be in his collection he could have bought, but he had them stolen because paying a thief was cheaper than going above board even though it means he can’t display the spoils.”

“What does that have to do with his security?”

“He’s planned his security based on the tactics used by people in his employ,” Joe said. “And there’s no way somebody that tight with their money would pay extra for a second thief where one would do the job, ergo, all his strategies defend against a one-man approach.”

“Oh,” Webster said, “Oh, that’s…”

Joe leaned back against the pillows, reaching up with one arm to drum his fingers against the headboard impatiently. “So can you give me a security run down or not?” he asked.

The information Webster gave him was not exactly encouraging. And given what he already knew about de Vere Joe knew better than to hope the man had got sloppy in the years since Webster had worked for him. No, the security would be tighter than ever. But even as he ended the call and let Webster get back to playing student, Joe’s mind was racing towards a conclusion.

Joe didn’t really believe a place could be impenetrable, if there was a legitimate way in there was always an illegitimate one to be found, but there were places that were too high risk to ever be worth breaking into and all of the information he had suggested that the de Vere estate was such a place. Were he doing the job out of personal interest he’d give it up as more trouble than it could be worth, but he wasn’t, and as little as he liked the prospect of pushing his luck with de Vere Joe liked the thought of calling Sink and announcing that Joe couldn’t do the job even less.

If quitting was out and trespass wasn’t viable then that left them with one option.

Invitation.

One of them was going to need to get close enough to Andrew de Vere to be welcomed into his family home and given the chance to penetrate the internal security.

Of course, it might work, but getting close to de Vere would be a chore. He could try fobbing Webster off with that particular task, he clearly had some skills as a conman so maybe he could pull of idiotic well enough to fool Andrew de Vere into thinking they were friends, but given how poorly he’d concealed his disdain at being interrupted in a class he was only taking for the cover Joe wasn’t confident that part suited Webster. Anyway, if the elder de Vere knew Webster’s face then they’d also have to make sure Andrew brought Webster onto the property at a time his father was guaranteed to be absent, which was a complication they just didn’t need.

Joe was going to have to do the dirty work.

What fun.

 

*

 

His initial concern was that Webster’s established persona would be a disadvantage because it meant that Webster’s potential roles in any move on de Vere were limited. He’d been smart enough to stay away from de Vere before he was ready to act but he couldn’t be invisible. If Web had to be known, however, they could take advantage of the potential connections.

 plenty of de Vere’s buddies weren’t choosy about who they added on social media, especially not when the request came with a familiar face attached, and by connection to a few of them it was easy to tap into campus social media communities, and from there it was easy to start finding patterns in de Vere’s movements. When Joe had been first starting out tracking down a mark had taken skill, he felt frustratingly deprived of a sense of accomplishment to be able to simply set an alert of de Vere’s Facebook check-ins.

Three days after the phone-call and the security details, Joe had a plan. Or, the bones of a plan anyway. There were still an awful lot of uncertainties that he wouldn’t be able to account for until after he’d gotten close to Andrew de Vere, but he had a contact strategy and Webster had agreed to it.

However, Webster, Joe was frustrated to find out, was the kind of person who got edgy while waiting for action. Edgy and talkative.

“And then if you can get him hooked today, if you take a drink every time he-”

“-does it, then I create an association I can exploit later,” Joe finishes for him. “I’m not a rookie Web. I might prefer a good quick safe-cracking to your lies and long games of getting codes from people’s heads, but I know manipulation 101.”

“I…”

“No.” Joe didn’t know what was worse, the condescension or the babbling, but he couldn’t take one more minute of it. “Go get in position.” De Vere wasn’t due to arrive for another ten minutes, but Joe didn’t think he could listen to Webster talk for that long.

“Right. So we’re established in place before he arrives,” Webster said, brushing imaginary dust of his jacket. “Okay.”

Joe watched in the reflection of the shop window as Webster crossed the lawn and settled into place. It was strange to see. Just like he’d dropped the Interpol persona at the Westing-Anderson gallery a year ago, Webster slipped into character and became somebody else with little more than a shift of his shoulders and a new tilt to his head, all the nervousness cast off in favour of the perfect image of a bored student with a satchel full of reading to do and a craving for coffee to get him through it.

Joe turned away. Watching a co-conspirator was a dead giveaway. Even a mark who didn’t realise they ought to be looking out for signs would be suspicious if they saw him paying too much attention to somebody he shouldn’t. It was time to focus on playing his own role, he’d just have to trust that despite his apparent nervousness Webster could do his part as well as he’d said.

It took closer to fifteen minutes for Andrew de Vere to arrive and Joe made note of the delay in case he needed to factor lateness into future calculations. De Vere arrived with a pack of friends, almost certainly all equally rich and obnoxious and Joe tracked him for a moment out of the corner of his eye, musing on what it said about the world that de Vere’s money made him attractive when he was weedy with hair the colour of old-dishwater and only marginally more bone structure than a pudding, and then Joe carefully turned back to his coffee, making sure to listen but not stare as stage one of the plan played out.

He waited one minute, then two, then heard the yell that was the sound of the first step’s completion and his signal that he could start paying attention again.

Over on the lawn Webster and Andrew de Vere were toe to toe and both drenched in coffee as they yelled in each other’s faces.

De Vere was already red-faced, crashing towards the heights of absurd fury which could only be achieved by the massively entitled in the face of petty annoyances they believed themselves to be above. If Joe hadn't had a part to play he'd have grinned.

Instead he watched, waiting as de Vere raged and Webster sneered and all of de Vere's little chums did exactly as Joe had hoped for and stood around uselessly, except for one who pulled his phone out. God knows what that was about. Joe didn't do social media for his own purposes, it was hardly professionally wise, he knew enough to fake up a profile for a cover and to be able to use it against his targets but he couldn't work out why de Vere's friend would want pictures of his friend humiliated. Teenagers…

Joe watched as de Vere stamped his foot like the overgrown spoilt child Joe had already guessed him to be and then —yes!— raised a hand.

Webster was faster.

Joe hadn't been sure about this part of the plan, wasn't sure Webster would be able to carry it off, but it seemed his doubts were unfounded. Webster pulled back a fist and then slammed de Vere right in the mouth.

De Vere staggered backward, spitting blood.

Joe was reluctantly impressed. But it was time to stop playing the innocent bystander.

"Are you alright mate?" he called out, striding over in their direction. As anticipated de Vere just sneered, obviously unhappy about having attention drawn to his weakness, especially by somebody he no doubt perceived to be beneath him.

Once Joe got close enough, Webster shoved at him.

"Piss off," he said. "This is none of your business. This ignorant little prick thinks he doesn't need to watch where he's walking?" he leaned past Joe to glare at de Vere. "What did your daddy invest in the library or something? Because fuck knows you clearly don't have the intelligence to get in on your own merit since you can't even walk without-"

Joe shoved Webster back, hard enough that he was confident that the winded 'oof' he gave was genuine. "Go back to your library pretty boy, before you get coffee all over your books too," he said, lifting his mug threateningly. "Some people are just trying to have breakfast here without having to deal with you ridiculous hipster fucks sprawling yourselves all over the fucking pavement like nobody ever taught you to sit on a bench like civilised people."

Webster rolled his eyes. "Oh, you people are all the same, fucking anti-intellectuals," he declared, possibly the only broad classification that would give Andrew de Vere and Joe something in common, unless you counted being human and with the amount of tangles in the de Vere family tree Joe wasn't even sure of that. "Frankly the standards here are appalling."

Joe punched him.

He might have implied to Webster while they were discussing the plan that he was going to pull his punch, but the genuine article would be more convincing to de Vere. Though, he landed it in Webster's stomach not his face, which he thought was a generous compromise.

Webster doubled over, cursing up a storm, then glared at Joe and flounced off. Joe turned to de Vere. “Some friends you’ve got here,” he said, working to strike the edge between disdain and friendliness. “You always hang out with the kind of guys who are happy to stand back and let you get your ass beat by a nerd.”

“Did I ask you?” de Vere asked, wiping the blood from his mouth.

Joe rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying, it’s a pretty pathetic bunch who are too scared to fight with those odds.”

De Vere looked at Joe assessingly and for a moment Joe thought he might bite already, that they could move forward early, but then de Vere’s lips twisted and he was back to looking at Joe like the scum beneath his designer shoes. “I didn’t need your help or theirs,” de Vere spat, “I had him.”

That was fine. They could keep going with plan A. “Alright, alright mate,” Joe said, raising his hands in a mockery of surrender. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

He rolled his eyes and turned away, leaving de Vere to clean up his bloodied face and no doubt rip into his friends with the exact critique Joe had given him just as soon as he could do it somewhere private enough to not lose face.

The ball was rolling, now all they had to do was make sure they could keep directing it.

 

*

 

The service station where they met was both cheap enough and far enough town in the opposite direction of the de Vere estate that Joe was certain they’d be able to meet without worrying about it somehow getting back to either of their marks. Really, he thought it was absurd that de Vere even had a place in town when his family’s mansion was less than half an hour away, but fuck if Joe ever understood the decisions of people born into money.

He ordered a coffee and cheap burger with extra almost everything on it and ignored the eye-roll from the bored teenage waitress. Sure, the menu offered a burger with everything on it, but that included bacon and cheese Joe was pretty sure in a place like this if he asked them to hold those ingredients they’d just lift them off the pre-made burger and leave the grease instead of making him a new one from scratch - complicating his order increased the odds of the cook paying attention, and gave him a quick way to spot if his requests had been ignored.

He waited for five minutes before he spotted Webster walking across the parking lot. He’d pulled up someplace that blocked his car from view, frustrating because Joe was curious as to what vehicle he’d picked for this particular cover story.

Cold air gusted through the whole diner as the door swung open, then slammed shut with a rattle.

“What happened to our fight being just for show?” Webster asked, as he tossed his bag down and slid into the booth.

“That was me pulling my punch,” Joe lied, at least he felt slightly vindicated about Boston now. “Don’t be soft.”

"Whatever," he said. "Is de Vere on the hook? Or..."

"Yeah, no, I'm gonna have to fight you again," Joe said, and couldn't quite hide his glee. This was one of the most fun schemes he'd come up with in a long time. Sure it was kind of annoying not being able to plan for how they'd proceed on the actual stealing part until after they had de Vere on the hook to reveal the security to them, but the manufactured conflict that would convince de Vere to see Joe as an ally was one of the more enjoyable pretences he'd engaged in.

Webster sighed, waving over the waitress to make his order. At least he didn't snap his fingers. No persona justified that sort of bullshit and Joe might have had to call the whole plan off.

Webster ordered a tea and tried to order a salad but Joe kicked him under the table. "He'll have a burger too," Joe corrected, and the waitress looked slightly perplexed for a moment and the shrugged.

"What was that for?" Webster asked, with a sulky pout.

"That was me doing you a favour," Joe said. "Really, what rock did you grow up under? A salad from a place like this is just gonna be burger garnish that's been sitting under lamps since the breakfast run ended."

"You could have just said."

"And miss the opportunity to see you making that face?" Joe laughed. "No way."

"So when do we make our next move?"

"Impatient?" Joe asked. He was too. Knowing that he was so close to ending his debt to Sink but still not having all the pieces to do it was frustrating, but indulging impatience was how mistakes happened. "We need to take it steady, too many incidents too fast will seem contrived and even de Vere might get suspicious. Right now we need to give him another little run in with you, nothing too violent just rude, around the weekend and then maybe we go in for the kill next week."

"You think you can hook him on the second try?" Webster asked, splashing milk into his tea as soon as the waitress brought it over but not even glancing at the sugar bowl.

Joe shrugged. "He's weak willed. We knew getting him today was a long shot but there was a moment there were I thought we might have had him already. He doesn't actually need to like or trust me, not yet, he just needs to see me as useful enough that he'll let me close."

"And if he doesn't bite?"

"Then we keep up the long game. This isn't the sort of thing that works to exact timing, but it will work. And hey, it if does take a while it's not like you're exactly slumming it with this cover," Joe pointed out. "You're enjoying this."

"That’s obvious," Webster said, a wry little grin that told Joe that he was right and that Webster wasn't even ashamed at being caught out.

"It's not all fake, is it?" he remarked. Maybe Webster was just a good actor, but the hints of the role that lingered even when he had no reason to keep faking it made Joe suspect otherwise. "The whole Ivy League thing isn't all fiction. Bet you've got real rich parents,” which made Joe wonder why Webster had even got into stealing in the first place. “Are they proud of having a thief for a son?"

Webster tossed his head back and laughed, too loud and with none of Webster’s usual studied-charm in a way that made Joe think it was the real deal. "Oh, Liebchen,” he scoffed. “My parents worked on Wall Street. The only difference between me and them is that if I fuck up and get caught taking what isn’t mine I won't be getting bailed out by the government because I'm too big to fail."

Joe nodded. It fit. Three times he'd seen Webster now and every time he'd gone high-end with his covers, which was risky. If you had to deal with human security there were, fundamentally, two approaches. Under or over. Under, you played the part of a janitor or delivery guy, some schlub leading a dull little life and beneath the notice of any security, because a guy worth considering as a threat probably wouldn’t be schlepping around in overalls doing menial tasks for the bigwigs. If Joe couldn’t outright avoid dealing with human security, this was his preferred approach, because an unmemorable cover was reusable and being forgettable meant that witnesses couldn’t describe you to cops. Then there was going over. Being the VIP who couldn’t be a threat and there was no reason to think take anything because they already had everything they could possibly want, security gracefully stepping aside because nobody wanted to be the guy who got issued with a formal complain because they got their dirty fingerprints on the Armani suit of a man would could have written their employers a million dollar check if an overzealous guard hadn’t ruined the mood by giving him a pat down. The high-end cover was harder to sell, but if Webster was playing to type then maybe it came easier to him.

"So how does a rich little college boy end up in this line of business anyway?" Joe asked.

"Oh, come on," Webster said, fixing Joe with a droll look. "You really think I'm going to give you all my secrets just because you're helping me with de Vere?"

Joe shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

They were interrupted when the waitress brought the burgers over, and no way they were getting cooked to order with that turnaround time but Joe was still certain he'd made the right call warning Webster away from the salad. Joe had been vaguely expecting Webster to pick at the food, maybe even try and use his napkin to wipe of the thick layer of grease that Joe considered the best bit even if it was a heart attack waiting to happen, but instead he picked up the burger and took a large bite. Joe felt vaguely disappointed, the truth was that he'd been rather looking forward to having something else to make fun of Webster for.

For a few minutes they ate in silence, just Webster gnawing his way through the burger and Joe dipping his fat English fries, covered in too much salt, into the overly vinegary ketchup.

“I hate not having a complete plan,” Webster admitted. "I mean, we're professionals, we should do better."

“It’s not a profession,” Joe objected. “I mean, it’s not like you can study crime at college.” There was a long pause. “Oh fuck, tell me your major wasn’t criminology.”

Webster laughed. “It was literature. But I took a few classes on the side - criminology, as you say; a little computer science and psychology; and of course you can never go wrong with art history. I told my academic adviser I was thinking about law school.”

“Huh, so this hipster lit student thing could have been your real life if you hadn’t turned to the dark side.”

Webster wrinkled his nose. “Maybe," he said, in a tone that sounded a lot more like 'I don't fucking think so'. “But anyway, it's a figure of speech."

“What is?”

“Calling what we do a profession,” Webster said. “Also, I’m shocked that your one being pedantic about the meanings of words in this conversation.”

“Why wouldn't I be?” Joe asked. He didn't really care that much about that sort of thing, but he didn't think he was any less likely than the average guy to pick up on a mistake and he wasn't exactly making a secret of the fact he was ready to leap on any slip Webster made.

Shrugging, Webster said, “I guess I'm too used to people telling me to stop doing that.”

Urgh. “They’re damn right. Don't be a person who corrects other people's grammar all the time,” Joe said, because everybody did it sometimes but there was nothing more annoying than somebody who pointed it out every time somebody spoke casually instead of in accordance with a hundred-year-old grammar manual. "Jesus fucking christ, I bet you don't even have to try to think of know-it-all shit to say to piss de Vere off."

Webster didn't deny it. Joe was certain that his suspicions were correct and Webster was basically using his own personality for this job and probably getting a kick out of pissing de Vere off. It was alright for some.

The conversation quickly turned into a session of bitching about Andrew de Vere and all of the failings of character they'd uncovered while researching him and the ways that those flaws had been proven during their first encounter. Joe tried to elicit a little sympathy from Webster for the fact that he was the one who was going to be stuck enduring more of the idiot's company but it seemed punching Webster had scuppered his chances on that front.

They could have had this conversation over the phone, but Joe rarely got to socialise as himself instead of as part of a con and even with somebody as annoying was Webster was it was nice to be able to be a little looser with his tongue than he normally was, even if he wasn't stupid enough to trust the guy.

That enjoyment didn't stop him from leaving Webster with the bill when the meal was over.

After all, Web owed him.

 

*

 

Joe made sure to stay away from Webster’s next scheduled encounter with de Vere, it wouldn’t do for him to be too convenient of a saviour, but he didn’t feel like he’d missed out because Webster had texted him a rundown afterwards.

A lovingly detailed, adjective-laden description that made clear that whatever burner phone setup Webster had for this job it wasn’t one that came with a limited texting plan.

It seemed that keeping the encounter non-violent had been too much to ask for, although Webster was very insistent that it had been de Vere who had got aggressive and Webster had only bumped him. Joe suspected that it might have been a pretty hard bump though.

He didn’t really need to know what happened other than that the plan had progressed but Webster’s texting wasn’t any more boring than the massive amounts of daytime TV he’d been watching while laying low so while Joe didn’t respond, he didn’t tell Webster to knock it off either.

He waited until mid-week to begin the next step.

Once again they tracked de Vere’s social media to figure out their staging ground, this time somewhere a little less public where he wouldn’t have to worry about losing face in front of his friends but might he begin to get a little worried about having nobody around to keep the situation from getting out of hand.

Joe couldn't pretend he didn't feel just a little weird about lurking in the alley beside a bar. He was sure he reassembled a would-be mugger which was never his style of crime. He'd had to take his phone out and mess with it in a way that didn't really go with the whole passing unnoticed part of the plan because two women had walked past earlier and given him very strange looks and he figured creating the appearance of having stepped out to take care of something away from the noise and crowds inside was his best shot at avoiding the risk of somebody getting wary of him lurking and calling the cops on him. He hadn't expected there to be so much vigilance, had mental images of drunk students leaving each other passed out on the pavement, but it seemed that their level of care had increased. Or possibly just fear. The women who passed by had an air of being hyper-aware of their surroundings and each other, and he suspected that while the effects of that might be keeping them safe the reasons for it weren't positive.

Joe had the shitty job here, although since it was his plan he only had himself to blame. Webster was somewhere in the bar, making like he was having a good time although Joe had warned him not to drink too much because even light impairment could quickly impede his ability to manipulate de Vere just right. Webster had rolled his eyes at that and said he'd had access to unlimited wine and champagne since he'd been old enough to stay up until the end of adult parties, which he might have meant as a reassurance of his alcohol tolerance but mostly seemed to Joe like an indicator of questionable parenting. He'd had some experiences with drinking growing up, sure, but he'd had to sneak around like a normal kid - providing alcohol freely meant a kid would miss out on practising the whole range valuable life-skills involved in acquiring and covering up the consumption of illicit booze.

He was inclined to want to bitch Webster out for how long this was taking, but since he couldn't get phone signal for shit in his hiding place he couldn't even confirm via social media that de Vere had arrived yet. They knew from the cyber-stalking he'd end up at this club towards the end of most of his nights on the town, and from there Webster would lure him away from his friends and the drunken crowd but their time-line didn't get any more specific than that. So Joe lurked, bored and more than a little cold from standing still, and waited for the sound of familiar raised voices.

And waited.

And waited.

Joe was just beginning to wonder if the plan had fallen through, if something had kept de Vere from arriving or if Webster had failed to pull off his side of things when he finally heard, "Your snivelling sycophants aren't here to save you now!" called out from the street.

He'd argued against the alliteration in the signal but Webster had insisted that it was in character and in the end Joe decided to let it slide.

When he stepped out of the shadows it’s to the sight of Webster with his hands fisted in Andrew de Vere’s collar, startlingly menacing as he shook de Vere. “You’re a disgrace,” Webster ranted, a hint of a slur in his voice that could mean he’d ignored Joe’s orders or could be faked because he’d decided drunkenness was the best justification for this persona to lash out without any more provocation than de Vere’s presence. “People like you…”

“People like what?” de Vere replied, “People smart enough to know there’s nothing to be gained from boring old books? You’re stuck in the last century. At least I’m achieving something!”

Joe hesitated. This was his moment to cut in but he was kind of curious as to exactly what de Vere thought he was achieving with his binge-drinking and womanising. Joe wasn’t opposed to a little hedonism here and there but he didn’t have any illusions of it being productive. Alas, de Vere was apparently an unfocused sort of drunk because he didn’t expound on that and instead lapsed into a rant about the general uselessness of literature which Joe thought was pretty hypocritical coming from somebody who was studying philosophy, politics and economics - a course that just screamed that is was full of the sort of wishy-washy and indecisive people who couldn’t handle the math for a real finance course but thought the economics component would satisfy their parents wish for them do a course with practical, profitable applications.

He shook his head. As tempting as it was to sit back and watch Webster and de Vere go at it in their ridiculous college-boy cat-fight, they had a job to do and he had a target to befriend and a- diamond to steal.

"Still got it under control?" Joe said, stepping into the glow of a streetlight with a hint of unnecessary melodrama but if he couldn’t indulge in that shit when working against people too drunk to question it, then what fun was there in life?

In a moment of perfect timing, Webster tightened his grip so de Vere could only splutter in response.

"No?" Joe said dryly, and then sauntered over and pried Webster's hands off of de Vere and pushed him backwards, the way Webster stumbled betraying that Webster had definitely been drinking for real. Joe ground his teeth. He hated working with unreliable people. "Go back to your books," he spat in Webster's direction. "Stop trying to play with the big boys." It made his stomach curl to imply that Andrew de Vere had any sort of merit but it was subtle slips like that which would subconsciously convince de Vere to see himself and Joe as being on the same side.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Webster retorted, stepping up as if to get in Joe's face.

It was a good play but the threat was half real as Joe curled a hand into his fist and pulled it back. If they had to fight in front of de Vere then Joe wouldn't risk blowing the game by faking it and he was pretty sure Webster didn't actually want to take the real beating Joe would dish out if pushed.

Maybe Webster was sober enough to catch his sincerity or maybe he just didn't think that David Eliot was enough of a fighter to follow up on his talk because he backed off. "You'll see," he muttered darkly. "You're all just peons of the system anyway."

He was definitely overplaying that, surely even the most ridiculous of college kids would come out with something that dumb, but de Vere didn't bat an eyelid so maybe Joe just had too much hope for humanity. Joe turned to de Vere as Webster stalked away. The drunkenness might be his cue to cut Webster loose, but for now he needed to focus on getting de Vere on the hook, adapting his plan to a one man scheme could wait until later.

"You okay?" he said, looking de Vere up and down. He certainly didn't look it, thought it was hard to say how much of that was from Webster and how much was just the drinking.

De Vere scowled. "I-"

Oh, for fuck's sake. Joe could see on his face that de Vere was about to start on his 'I'm better than everybody and certainly don't need plebs to protect me from being beaten up by nerds' rubbish again. Best to cut him off before he could build up any steam. "Where do you live?"

"Why do you want to know?" de Vere said, suspiciously. "You can't rob me. I have excellent security."

If only he knew… If Joe hadn't needed to keep on de Vere's good side, or as close as the idiot had to one, he'd have stolen his wallet and his keys just to make a point. "You’re too drunk to drive," he pointed out, "And no cab with take you in this state."

Joe rolled his eyes. "You want to stand here all night trying to flag down somebody desperate enough for money to deal with the hassle of scrubbing your blood and the inevitable vomit off their backseat, you're on your own, but trust me, you're going to be waiting a while. There's easier fares all over this town."

De Vere huffed but didn't actually have any sort of comeback. He was more than a little glassy about the eyes and if he weren't such a prick Joe would almost feel sorry for the fact his friends had left him in this state. "C'mon which of the stupid colleges?"

De Vere snorted. "Nobody who's anybody lives in the colleges anything but officially, they're filled with all sorts of riff-raff," he said. And there went any hints of sympathy from Joe. "I have a house just off St. Giles'."

Of course, Joe had already known that. De Vere had the family manor a short drive away, a townhouse, _and_ a college dorm - rich people were terrible.

He didn't bother asking if de Vere wanted Joe to walk him back. De Vere would certainly decline. However, if instead of giving the option he just got on with things he was pretty sure de Vere would go along without thinking to object. In Joe's experience most people were easily lead in that way but drunk people were a particular walk in the park. He knew roughly which direction to head after all of his time scoping out the town so he simple grabbed de Vere by the sleeve and set out walking.

Making conversation would have seemed too friendly, even now he didn't want to push de Vere too hard or fast so they walked in silence for a while before de Vere spat, "Fucking arrogant hipster pricks," into the silence.

Joe didn't try and contain his smirk as de Vere started ranting about Webster. He couldn't have asked for a better opening. It was easy to nod along and make agreeable noises as they walked and de Vere raged, to toss out a few comments that made clear on this topic, despite the myriad other differences between them, they were of a shared mind. The hardest part for Joe was not pointing out the way that most of the people whom Webster's David Eilot persona likely classed as peers were just as conformist, classist and fixated on consumer goods that could be used for virtue signalling as the groups they claimed to oppose, their brand of counter-culture nothing more than a distorted mirror, but de Vere didn't want scathing insights into the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie psuedo-marxists that seemed to make up fifty percent of any given college intake, he just wanted to swear about people who thought being educated was more important than the centuries of breeding that had gone into the de Vere lineage and for the sake of the job Joe could humour him.

The bitching took them all the way back to de Vere's home, a centuries old townhouse with a lot of original architecture but reasonably up to date security features — nothing that would have delayed Joe for more than a minute or if he wanted to get in but certainly enough to dissuade the casual burglar. If de Vere had been living with house-mates it would have been an inconvenience for Joe, but at the same time he couldn't help but be weirded out at the thought that a place like that was inhabited by just one person. Joe had expensive taste and liked to live in nice places as much as the next person, but there was nothing appealing about rattling around in a big empty house like that.

"Keys," he said, holding out a hand.

Oh yes, the way de Vere fished the key-chain from his pocket and handed it over when he could have just as easily unlocked the door himself proved tonight had been a success. De Vere was eating out of Joe's hand now.

He followed de Vere in and carefully didn't show any signs of interest in the ostentatious decor - the sort of lavish that would only ever be tacky. De Vere would expect Joe to be impressed, he was the sort of person who expected everybody to be impressed by his wealth, even his peers who'd come from money would satisfy his ego, but Joe had worked out early on the way to play this was as the one guy who wasn't awed by the fact he was in the presence of Andrew de Vere, heir to the earldom, while still seeming interested in him as a person. De Vere had grown up in a bubble of privilege and he wouldn't step out of it easily but he might be made curious by the novelty of somebody so different from his usual social circle as long as Joe avoided presenting to obvious a threat to his delusions of grandeur.

"Nightcap," he said, playing cool like there wasn't odd about the fact he'd invited himself into de Vere's house and now his liquor cabinet.

De Vere obediently fished out two glasses and poured out two rather generous helpings of a scotch Joe had no doubt was priced as much for the prestige of having such a fancy label visible on the shelf as for the taste.

They drank as if in pleasant company and, just as Joe had hoped, halfway through the glass de Vere said, "You're alright."

"Oh yeah?" Joe said, tipping his chair back a little and trying to strike the balance between engaged enough to encourage de Vere’s interest while still seeming cool. It helped that de Vere was definitely drunk/

"Yeah, fuck," de Vere said. "Better than those fucking ponces who are supposed to be my classmates. Where the fuck were they tonight?" Joe had no idea. Originally he'd been expecting to have to find ways to manipulate de Vere's friends away from him but it had quickly become clear after a few days of monitoring their social media that none of them were very good at sticking by each other once the liquor was flowing or if there was the possibility of company in a short skirt.

"Whatever," he said instead. "Even if they had been there they wouldn't have been any fucking use."

"Too right, " de Vere replied, then downed the rest of his drink like it was water. "Fuck 'em. I don't need 'em."

That was it. Joe didn't even need to say anything; de Vere would talk himself into the rest.

"You should come out with me at the weekend," de Vere said, "That'd show them. They fucking think... sick of all of these fucking losers. They think they can bail on me? I'll drop 'em all, let's see how long it takes 'em to come crawling back."

Phase one: complete.

 

*

 

Joe woke up just after 10:30. A glance at his phone showed no messages from de Vere but that didn't worry him. It would have been more concerning if he was function at any hour of the morning after the state he'd been in when Joe had left the previous night.

There were also no messages or missed calls from Webster. Joe scowled and hit his number. If he dropped Webster cold then he risked Webster blundering in trying to figure out what had happened. Making it clear their deal was over would almost certainly but Webster against him, but Joe could deal with that. The phone rang for a few seconds and Joe didn't bother to give Webster time to speak when he picked up.

“You’re out,” he said.

“What?” Webster replied. “We had a deal.”

“And you broke it,” Joe said. “I don’t work with people who can’t do their damn jobs.”

“What are you talking about?” Webster said. “I played my part perfectly.”

“You were wasted last night,” Joe said. “That makes you unreliable.”

There was a pause.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. This is precision work, I can’t trust you if—”

“No, you seriously think I was drunk?”

Now it was Joe’s turn to hesitate. “I saw you,” he pointed out. “You could barely stand.”

“Yeah, because that was the plan. Look like I was picking a fight with de Vere outside the club so you could swoop in and rescue him,” Webster said. “It wouldn’t have made sense for me to be acting stone cold sober.”

“You didn’t look like you were acting

Webster sighed. “Of course not. Good acting doesn’t look fake.”

“That would be a lot more believable if you hadn’t also forgotten to check in," he said sharply.

"I didn’t forget,” Webster said, like not checking in when it was in the plan was an okay thing to do. "You were out even later that I was and I didn't know if you're the sort of person the silences their phone at night."

Oh.

It wasn't an excuse, plans were plans, but Joe supposed that it wasn't like it had been a safety-related or time-sensitive check in that he'd missed. And he didn’t sound hungover, which led a little credibility to his claims that the drunken staggering was just playing the part.

“Okay,” Joe said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Next time explain properly what you’re going to do,” he added, though he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. The sooner this was over and he could go back to relying on nobody but himself the better.

“Oh, am I back in on the deal? And I suppose you think I should still trust you when you’ve just shown you’re itching to break the bargain…” Webster replied.

“You need to,” Joe replied. "Because I'm pretty sure I have de Vere where we want him. Attention seekers are so easy."

"So we'll have an in for the estate soon?" Webster said, annoyance giving way to eagerness.

"It’ll still take time," Joe admitted. "He’s invited me clubbing not home and I don't want to push him too much. Even an idiot like that might get suspicious if his brand-new friend is suddenly asking too many questions about his father's house."

Webster made an impatient noise. "Wait too long and he'll get bored of you," he pointed out.

It was true, Joe was relying heavily on the novelty factor to smooth over the lack of common ground between him and de Vere. Not to mention, he really didn't want to keep Sink waiting for longer than necessary.

"He needs to call me next," Joe said. That couldn't be avoided. He'd left de Vere his burner number and letting him make the next move would let de Vere think he was in control. "But..." he wasn't going to say Webster was right, even if it was true, but, "We'll keep up the pace because I don't want to be dealing with him or you for longer than necessary."

"Well, I'm glad we're in agreement," Webster said. "The sooner this whole affair is done with the better."

"I'll update you when it's time for the next move," Joe said, then hung up without a goodbye.

It didn't do to get chatty or comfortable on jobs.

 

*

 

In the end de Vere didn’t call until Saturday night.

Joe had just been beginning to get antsy, worried that de Vere had forgotten or lost interest once the booze had worn off and he'd have to begin planning from scratch with the added disadvantage of a known face, when the call had come in.

It turned out de Vere just really couldn't handle his hangovers. Fortunately seventy-two hours of sleeping it off hadn't healed the wound of Webster affronting his dignity and his friends failing to come to his support.

They went drinking that very night.

Worrying about pushing too hard turned out to have been pointless, de Vere was a chatty drunk and braggart, quite eager to flaunt his father's prestige and his family’s wealth and it was simple enough for Joe to steer him into talking about their internal security. What he heard wasn't soothing, Earl Frederick de Vere was as untrusting of his friends as he was his enemies, and getting into the house wouldn't mean anything close to access to their valuables.

But there was one reassurance to be found, and that was in how much Andrew de Vere was annoyed by his father's security consciousness and the fact it made it harder for him to show off his family wealth.

Harder, he'd bitched, not impossible.

The fact that was talking in terms of girls he'd screwed off the strength of impressing them with the collection wasn't ideal, but maybe Joe could convince de Vere to impress him anyway. Worst case scenario he enlisted some local girls and made it a party but dragging innocent bystanders into a con wasn't ideal, too unpredictable and Joe had to make sure he didn't accidentally leave them taking the fall (he had standards after all).

Getting in was suddenly starting to seem plausible.

Getting out remained a problem.

Andrew de Vere was an idiot but even he wouldn’t just let his new friend walk out with a diamond.

In the end Joe called Webster and set up a meeting. This wasn't the sort of problem that could be talked out over the phone. And since Webster was still a potential asset, Joe knew he probably ought to keep smoothing over the ruffled feathers he’d caused by threatening to cut Web out for being too drunk.

They ended up back at the service station, because anywhere in town risked them being seen together. Joe kind of liked the cheap plastic table clothes and rude staff, it reminded him of the places he'd frequented when he'd first been starting out, and Webster would just have to suck it up.

He ordered for the both of them again, the burger had been decent last time and there wasn't much else on the menu he was willing to risk. Food poisoning would be one helluva stupid way to fuck up a job. Webster arrived just a few minutes after the plates did and though he looked a little affronted at Joe's presumption he didn't actually complain.

As they ate, Joe explained what he'd learnt.

"--and if he takes girls back there then he's definitely got some way in," Joe concluded.

"I thought the storage vault was separate from the main house?" Webster said.

"As far as I can tell he just screws them right there in the vault," Joe said. It was the one problem with his bringing-in-girls-as-a-distraction idea - it would be pretty hard to rob the de Veres while junior and some random chick were still in the room.

“They let him?” Webster said scornfully. "I guess concrete must do it for some people."

Joe had figured there must be a rug or a couch or something in there, but, "Let me guess, you only fuck on thousand thread-count hand sewn silk sheets?"

"Supercars and piles of hundred-dollar bills are also acceptable," Webster retorted with smirk.

“Huh. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a petrol-head.” Now he was even more curious to catch a glimpse of whatever Webster was driving.

Webster shrugs. "I have taste, that's all."

Joe glanced down at Webster’s sweater. It was very fitting with the David Eliot hipster persona, but tasteful? Still, this was no time for a sartorial debate. "The problem is that I can find a way to talk de Vere into letting me into the vault once, no problem--" well, slightly a problem but he didn't need Webster to know that, he had to appear in control otherwise Webster might start trying to do his own thing, "--but twice? No, I'm going to have to take it on the first time, which means I'll only be able to go off what de Vere has told me about the security. And then there's the exit plan."

"It?"

Oh shit. Just like that the good humour had vanished from Webster's face leaving only ice behind. Joe had almost forgotten that he was supposed to be helping Webster with his revenge plan too, and after their argument the other morning he’d already made Web wary of a double cross. "The diamond and as much of the rest as I can clear out," he corrected. "Plus, the added embarrassment of knowing it was his son who got me past the security."

"Andrew de Vere is already an embarrassment," Webster said coolly. "And I already told you that a few missing trinkets aren't enough."

Joe was losing him. He needed to think fast. It was one thing to threaten to cut Webster out when Joe had suspected him of being an unstable liability, but that had been a mistake and there was no reason to turn him against Joe if it could be avoided. Sure, he'd already got the in he needed from Webster, but Webster knew too much about his plan and even if the way they'd arranged things meant Webster couldn't go to de Vere about Joe's plan, he could certainly go to the cops. Law enforcement attention would scupper Webster’s hopes of revenge but if he thought that Joe had used him and then broke their bargain Webster might decide giving up on de Vere was worth it for an immediate revenge on Joe.

"What if I could get you in?" He didn't know how to give Webster the revenge he wanted without screwing himself over, but maybe giving Webster an opening would be enough.

Webster leaned back in his chair, eyeing Joe sceptically. "De Vere senior knows he can't trust me and de Vere junior hates me," he pointed out.

"We use that," Joe said. The pieces were falling together in his mind, and oh, but sometimes he impressed even himself. "De Vere takes people into the vault to show off to them, right?"

"Yes, but unless you can procure a girl for him and get him to bring you along that's no good, and I'm pretty sure he's not that open-minded," Webster said, "What does this have to do with—"

"We don't have him bring a girl back there, we have him bring you."

"What? Didn't I just—"

"Revenge. You humiliated him, or you will if what we've already done wasn't enough," Joe said. "So I convince him he wants to prove his superiority to you." This, yes, this would work. "He's going to use the vault to do that. Rub all of that wealth in your face while beating the shit out of you, it's the perfect power trip."

Webster frowned. "Beating the shit out of me?"

"Thinking he’s going to beat the shit out of you," Joe said dismissively. “We’ll turn the tables before it actually gets to that point.”

"I'm honestly more concerned how you'd convince him he's capable of it," Webster said scornfully. "He barely knows how to make a proper fist, you know."

"His ego will convince him of that," Joe explained. "And I’ll offer to soften you up for him or hold you down or something, I'll figure that part out when I get to it. The point is, I help him kidnap you and bring you into the vault, and then it's you, me, and him in the vault..."

He could see the moment the light went on in Webster's mind. The ice melted as quickly as it had set in and a wicked grin curled across his face. "You get your diamond and I-"

"You can do whatever you want," Joe promised. And having two of them present and de Vere overpowered would certainly make exiting easier too. "I'll meet with de Vere in the next couple of days, start easing him into the idea."

"Tell me before you start the final step," Webster said quickly, and Joe couldn't hold back his laugh.

"No surprise kidnappings," he assured. "And I'll try and make sure de Vere isn't too rough about it either." Just enough to ruffle Webster up a bit, Joe had to keep himself amused somehow.

 

*

 

It was sort of worrying how easy it was to open de Vere up to the idea of kidnapping and assault. Joe had expected at least a few concerns about morals or at least the potential for trouble but de Vere had quickly assured himself that his family name and local connection set him above the law.

Joe was beginning to think that these guys would deserve every bit of the revenge Webster wrought upon them.

The hardest part had been persuading de Vere to plan a proper kidnapping and that he couldn't just wander around Oxford hoping to run into Webster and then punch him in the face and stuff him in the back of his car. For starters, there was no way de Vere could punch hard enough to knock Webster out in one hit.

Kidnap wasn't Joe's area of expertise, dealing with hostages and negotiations was a whole world of trouble he didn't need when there were so many easier ways to get money, but he knew people and he’d seen things so within a few days they had a strategy. Planning was a lot easier when he didn’t have to worry about the getting away with it part.

Once again social media was key. Honestly, Joe didn't understand why there hadn't been a bigger boom in the kidnapping industry after the dawn of Facebook which it took all of the work out tracking somebody down and monitoring their movements. He'd shown de Vere the pattern on the places Webster was likely to be (the library, that stupid hipster coffee shop, the other library; his movements would have been easy to predict even without the tech) and de Vere would keep watch for him. When he found Webster he would absolutely not engage --no, not even to talk!-- but he'd text Joe and Joe would make his way over and he would be the one to lure Webster somewhere away from any witnesses and take him down.

De Vere had briefly got very excited and claimed he had a friend who could probably get them so drugs to use on Webster, but Joe had quickly pointed out that neither of them were pharmacists and the likelihood of giving Webster too little and having him recover to fast or too much and ruin their fun was far higher than the probability of them being able to figure out the perfect dose. He also made a mental note to ply de Vere for a little more information about his friend if he could and make some sort of anonymous tip because Joe really didn't want to think about who else the friend was supplying with sedatives and for what reasons.

No, he'd take Webster down himself and he wouldn't be using any of de Vere's stupid ideas, then he'd collect de Vere and they'd go back to de Vere's family estate and the real action could finally start.

 

*

 

De Vere was disturbingly giddy at enacting the plan he thought he was a part of as they drove out to the mansion. Joe hadn't expected him to relish in prospect the violence to quite this extent and was a little worried about the long-term effects of having unearthed this inner-viciousness. Hopefully when de Vere senior found out it was his son who let two thieves into the family vault he’d crack down hard enough on his son to repress it right back down again.

Webster was safely tucked away in the trunk of the car, having settled with only minimal bitching about the small space. Joe had known it was a good idea to vacuum it out for him. He could be nice. Webster hadn’t been so happy about the getting tied up part of the plan but Joe had pointed out he'd have to get Webster from the car to the vault without rousing de Vere's suspicions, and anyway it was that detail that made Joe feel that he was finally something close to even for his handcuffing in Boston. He still wanted to steal something from Webster, but that was a goal for another time after this mess was cleaned up and he’d got Sink off his back.

They parked in one of the house's private garages, because the de Vere's had three and Andrew was very proud of this fact. At first Joe had figured it was overkill, but then he’d got out of the car and he couldn’t help but double take at the sight of the sleek silver Aston Martin his third-hand junker had pulled up next to. A car like the certainly merited having a garage to itself.

Still, this was no time for ogling.

He made de Vere take him into the vault first, claimed he wanted to make sure that there was no way Webster could get away, meanwhile scoping out the location of the diamond and making sure there was no way the situation could accidentally turn against them once they'd showed their hand. Really, de Vere deserved this just for being so moronic as to take it as a given that Joe was some sort of kidnapping expert based on a handful of conversations and a few days acquaintance. Joe didn’t think he looked like the kind of guy those sorts of skill should be expected from, but de Vere trusted his abilities.

Getting in the vault was elaborately complicated and Joe had been right in thinking breaking in was never a viable option, but de Vere had the place opened up in minutes and once they were in... well clearly none of Frederick de Vere's hired crooks had ever led him to think about the possibility of somebody breaking out.

Joe had de Vere set up a chair and some rope in the middle of the room, somewhere Webster would be able to see all the art while they were beating on him, while he fetched Webster from the car and walked him down the stairs to the vault. He'd blindfolded Webster before putting him in the trunk, mostly for dramatic effect, and now he kind of wished he’d thought to gag Web as well because the way he cussed Joe out every time Joe let him stumble didn’t really go with the whole scared kidnap-ee image they were supposed to be presenting.

Once they were inside he shoved Webster into the chair and yanked away the blindfold.

"Now I'll show you! Now you'll see you stupid stuck up hipster shit!" de Vere ranted, not even noticing that Webster wasn't resisting at all and that Joe wasn’t making any move to tie him to the chair. "Look how much better than you I am! We're gonna beat your-"

Joe punched him and de Vere went out like a light.

"Well… that was easy," he said, enjoying the way Webster pulled a face. He hoped Webster remembered that when Web had punched de Vere he’d only managed to split his lip.

He could see the diamond, just sitting on a shelf, but first of all he freed Webster’s wrists from the ropes. They’d chaffed a little, but whatever, Joe’s wrists had been bruised to shit after Boston so Web was getting no sympathy from him.

Eyes on the prize. And not the black leather couch in the corner of the vault that was literally the sleaziest thing he’d even seen. He couldn’t imagine why the girls de Vere brought back would lower their standards to agreeing to letting him do anything with them down here and on that when there was a centuries old manor-house with actual fucking stained-glass windows just feet away.

He swiped the Florentine from its place, then glanced at the other jewels on the shelf, abandoned so carelessly it made Joe's chest ache. What the hell. He slipped the whole lot in his pockets. If he'd needed to he'd have settled for just satisfying Sink's request and clearing his debt, but he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to get something out of this score when it was sitting right in front of him.

“If you’ve got what you wanted then can you drag de Vere back upstairs. Get him somewhere out well of the way, in your trunk or somewhere," Webster said, grabbing a few things off the back shelf.

“Why not just leave him here?” Joe asked. Dragging him all the way out to the garage seemed like a lot of unnecessary work.

Webster shook his head. “I want to hurt de Vere but murder isn’t… that’s too much.”

“Wait, murder?” Joe said. “Who said anything about—”

Webster pulled a lighter from his pocket. "It would be if we left him here. Why did you think I told you to make sure you had your spare fuel cans filled?"

Joe hadn’t really thought about it all. Web had mentioned it when they’d been planning his kidnap but Joe had figured it was just some paranoia bullshit, like Joe was gonna let his car run out of gas in the middle of a heist.

"There's millions worth of stuff here!" he pointed out. "Some of this is priceless."

Webster shrugged. "If there's something you want, then take it. There are a few pieces I’m going to bring back to the car, but the rest burns."

Joe paused, looking around the room, trying to size up what he should take. Part of him wanted to tell Webster to stop, because maybe de Vere didn't deserve to have this shit but it seemed like such a waste. Still, he'd promised Webster whatever revenge he wanted and de Vere's collection might be valuable but most of the art would be no great loss aesthetically, he didn’t need to understand but he couldn't help asking, "Why burning it?"

"While you've been busy working on this idiot," he said, tipping his head towards de Vere, "I've been putting a few things together. Frederick de Vere likes insurance scams so much? He's going to get accused of a nice big one."

Joe gaped. De Vere framed Web for one painting in order to claim the insurance and Webster was going to burn the lot and make it look like de Vere had set it up to claim the insurance? Wow. "Well now I'm really glad I decided not to cut you out," he muttered. Probably the fact Webster had waited years to get revenge on de Vere should have been a hint, but Joe hadn't actually expected he'd been so wantonly destructive about it. Yet another shock. Joe really had to stop assuming that he’d got people all figured out if it led to people like Webster managing to surprise him like this.

He looked around the room, trying to decide what was worth saving. "Where am I gonna put this stuff if de Vere is in my trunk?" he pointed out.

Webster shrugged. "I don't know. You were smart enough to come up with all of this and you can’t figure something out?"

Joe paused. A compliment. Sort of. Apparently arson put Webster in a good mood.

Joe dragged de Vere up to the garage, stuffing him into the trunk of his car and then brought the petrol canisters back down to Webster.

He made two more trips, one with a haul for himself and another with the pieces Webster had picked out to take, while Webster doused the vault and he was just finishing loading up when Webster walked through the garage door. “It’s done, but since it’s a sealed vault it should be a while before the smoke sta-” Webster froze, jaw going slack. "That's new."

"Yeah?" Joe said, loading the last painting into the back of the Aston. "De Vere might have iffy taste in art but he knows how to pick his rides." A car like that didn’t make a good getaway car, it drew far too much attention, but he hadn't been sure if Webster would try to torch the garage too and it would be a crime worse than anything Joe would dream of committing to see a car like that burn.

Seeing Webster's reaction now, he realised that had never been a risk and suddenly he remembered what Webster had said in the diner several days previously. Silk sheets, piles of money, and supercars…

The thrill of a job well done already had his blood up, but the look of shameless desire on Webster’s face as he ran his hands over the paintwork spiked the adrenaline with a surge of lust. Joe slammed the trunk shut. He’d figured getting behind the wheel of car like that would be the perfect way to burn off the excess energy, but maybe there was a better option if he played his cards right…

"Hey Web," he said, pulling the keys from where he'd pocketed them earlier. It pained him to think of giving up his chance to drive such a beauty of a car but he could be content with just taking a ride if it meant he could make a play for something better once they were away from the scene of the crime. "Catch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
>  
> 
> _"Are you stalking me?"_
> 
>  
> 
> _"I'd like to think that if I were, I'd be good enough at it to see you more often than every few months."_


	4. Episode 4 - Sweet as Sugar

**_New York State - May 2016_ **

 

Being back on the East coast again isn’t fun. It’s a weird time of year, the weather frequently too hot but rain came pouring down at the most unanticipated of times. But Henry Ryder was back in New York and Joe had had his eye on the Ryder collection for too long to pass up the opportunity.

Ryder was a hard man to pin down and for the last two months gossip had placed him out on his yacht in the Caribbean with ‘select company’ which meant that his properties were locked up tight and patrolled by extensive private security because Ryder had come from coal money and was the kind of obnoxious billionaire to pay armed guards instead of just relying on an alarm and the knowledge that his insurance would pay out if anything did happen. Joe hated when rich people were actually security conscious. So he’d stayed away, because the first step to any heist was always scoping out the security and Joe had firm rules about what he was willing to mess with. He didn't mind dealing with a bit of muscle, you'd never make it far in the underworld if you weren't capable of kicking a few asses, but anywhere the guards were likely to have weapons should be approached with caution. He was willing to risk an receiving an ass kicking, had been on the wrong end of a knife once or twice, but Joe had never been shot and he planned on keeping things that way. That made the Ryder property a problem, even if from the sizes of the heat the guards were packing, Joe suspected the main reason for the guns was some kind of proxy overcompensation.

Now Ryder was back at his mansion, or rather, one of his mansions, the guards would still be there and they’d be more heavily armed than ever, but that would be so that Ryder could show them off to the many guests that would soon be flitting in and out of the house as Ryder indulged in his famed habit of throwing lavish party upon lavish party. Guards who were there for show wouldn’t want to make a mess and dozens of people coming and going meant that they wouldn’t be able to assume anybody unfamiliar was an intruder, which had been what kept Joe from targeting the place while it was empty. And the parties really would be non-stop. Ryder was as extravagant as he was idle, content to toss around the fortune made by his great-grandparents while remaining secure in the knowledge that he’d also inherited an investment profile that would keep him from bankrupting himself even if he indulged the most ostentatious tastes. The lifestyle was tacky and moreover it was dull, Joe might be making his fortune by stealing but that still involved using his brain, Everything Ryder did was so aimlessly indulgent. The man had no children and it made Joe wonder what would happen to his fortune when he died, in a nicer world the man might redeem himself a little by bequeathing it to charity, but Joe thought that it was far more likely that it would either end up tied up in some offshore investment scheme or that some gold-digger would turn up and attach themselves to him once it looked like the man was on his way out and then probably use the fortune to set themselves up as a reality T.V star – like the world needed more of those.

So, the party crowds were his way in. All of the guests coming in and out made passing himself off as an attendee tempting, if only every reconnaissance could involve free snacks and booze, but Joe didn’t have enough information on how Ryder structured his guest lists and he didn’t want to draw attention by gate-crashing too often. But the sort of parties Ryder threw always came with staff, caterers and waiters and self-important bartenders who called themselves mixologists; decorators and landscapers; entertainment and coordinators and management for those entertainers. A mid-range suit, a blue-tooth ear-piece, and an authoritative look was all he’d need to blend right in with the masses - and they’d probably have more access than the guests anyway.

It had only taken a few hours hanging around the gates for Joe to lift three different entry cards from people passing by, more than enough to mock up a convincing replica - for all that Ryder claimed to be high security the pass-cards were literally photo I.Ds, not even an RFID chip. So the next time Henry Ryder’s gates were swung open for limousines and sports cars to come pouring through, Joseph Tracy, senior liaison at 506 Events Management was guiding guests over to the valet parking with a professional smile and fingers that only occasionally twitched in the direction of a designer watch or diamond brooch.

Once enough guests were in he handed the job off to one of the lower ranked staff, so young and eager to please that none of them even blinked at the fact they’d never seen Joe around before, and then he slipped into the party, making sure to look preoccupied with eyeing the state of the canapes and not the state of the locks and how well reinforced the window frames were.

He was just about to venture deeper into the house, towards the parts used by staff but not open to the visiting public and therefore decidedly more interesting, when a face in the crowd caught his eye.

Sometimes Joe wondered how life felt to people whose existences didn’t lapse quite so often into farce.

Whatever scam Webster was running this time, he was clean-shaven again and it made him seem younger, closer to the innocent look he’d had when they’d first met although the shapeless suit had been replaced by one even more closely fitting than he’d worm in Berlin. No, everything about him was polished tonight -- nothing at all like how he’d looked the last time Joe had seen him, messy haired and shirt only half buttoned as he’d dropped Joe off at a tiny English train station so they could resume their separate escapes after their celebratory interlude.

And now Web was standing next to Henry Ryder.

Well, not so much standing as practically hanging off of Ryder’s side. Webster hadn’t seen Joe yet, but from his vantage point Joe could see just how far down Webster’s back Ryder’s hand was resting.

There was nothing friendly or professional about that.

Just his fucking luck.

If Webster had also set his sights on Ryder’s collection then that was going to be a problem. Joe had only been willing to team up in Oxford because Sink had been putting pressure on him, if Webster got in his way now then Joe wouldn’t hesitate. He couldn’t exactly raise the issue with Webster clinging to Ryder like a limpet though, so he waited and watched for an opportunity.

It wasn’t pleasant viewing.

Webster draped himself all over Ryder like a whore with rent due, pouting and laughing so falsely that Joe couldn’t believe that Ryder could possible fail to see he was being played.

Several times they came close enough that Joe could hear their conversation, listen to Ryder giving a condescending lecture on art history while Webster openly swooned over the older man’s intellect. It would have been obnoxious under the best of circumstances, but Ryder wasn’t even getting the history right.

It was a heinous display. Even some of Ryder’s other guests were shooting scornful looks in Webster’s direction.

He wanted to interrupt, to go over there and school Ryder on his bullshit and call Webster out on playing dumb, the act had to be part of a bigger plan and not just for Ryder’s sake but that didn’t make it any less cringe-worthy to watch.

Instead of doing anything at all, Joe ground his teeth. His plan would be easier if he didn’t draw Ryder’s attention unnecessarily and he knew it wasn’t just the stupidity of what he was seeing that made it so grating but one night on the road out of Oxford, no matter how good that brief encounter had been, didn't give Joe any claim on Webster. Not that that stopped the flare of anger as he watched the Ryder slide his hand up Webster’s back to curl around his neck. It was a possessive move -controlling- but Webster didn't fight it, in fact he tipped his head back a little, exposing his throat. It was sickening to watch. He could just walk away and focus on his work but things would be far worse if Webster later discovered Joe’s presence and was taken by surprise at an inopportune moment. Joe suspected he was a good enough con to cover it but why take the risk?

Consequently, when Webster finally extricated himself from Ryder’s wandering hands, Joe followed him into the bathroom.

Webster was bent over the sink, examining himself in the mirror when Joe walked in, leaning up against the door so that nobody else could accidentally interrupt them.

"Got yourself a sugar daddy I see," he said.

Webster startled –he really did have terrible situational awareness- and then turned to glare at Joe. "Are you stalking me?" he hissed.

Joe rolled his eyes. "As if. I'd like to think that if I were, I'd be good enough at it to see you more often than every few months," and because he was pretty sure he knew why Webster jumped to that conclusion he added, “You didn’t show me that good of a time Web.”

Holy hell, was that a blush? Joe hadn’t thought Webster would be capable of it. “Seriously though,” Joe added. “What’s your game with this guy? He's old enough to be your actual father, and he’s not hideous but he’s hardly aging well. I mean, unless you’re into that?”

“He’s not that old,” Webster said, but his tone suggested that he wasn’t even convincing himself. It was true that Ryder didn’t have a foot in the grave just yet but Joe was certain the only thing that Webster could possibly find attractive about the man were his deep pockets.

Joe sighed and pushed down his curiosity. It didn’t matter. If Webster really did have a thing for the rich and stupid then that was none of Joe’s business. He was here to work, not to get distracted just because he and Web had run one good job and spent one memorable night together. The only thing he was interested in from Webster was that Webster didn’t fuck this up for him. “You going to rat me out to your new sweetheart?”

“Is that jealousy I hear, Lieb?” Webster said. “I didn’t think you were the type.”

“I’ve got a job to do,” Joe said, refusing to indulge Webster in the rest. What had happened between them had been a fun way to work off the excess adrenaline of a job well done but Joe wasn’t going to let it become more, not even in either of their minds.

Webster rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Explaining how I knew who you were and what you do would be too much trouble.”

Given how good of a liar Webster was Joe wasn’t sure he believed it would be such a hardship for him, but perhaps a return to mutually assured destruction was the best thing for both of them. “Good. You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

 

*

 

Unfortunately resolving to stay out of each others way wasn’t enough to keep their paths from crossing. They didn’t interact, Ryder generally thought he was too good to interact with low level staff and left all the management of the people running his events to his assistants and that superior distance extended to his boy-toy, but Joe kept going to the parties and scouting information and that meant witnessing Ryder toting Webster around every party, subjecting him to self-congratulatory speeches like Webster was a flesh-light for his ego, and introducing him to guest after guest as his darling, his boy, and oh how fortunate Ryder was to have found him on that dock in Oranjestad.

It made Joe’s teeth itch to hear Ryder talking like Web was a trinket in his collection, something to be possessed and that he got off on owning, but Webster preened at the attentions, looking so pleased by every sleazy grab of his ass that Joe wondered if he wasn’t on the verge of making like he had in Berlin and dropping to his knees right there in the gallery, only this time with a little more follow through.

Joe had clearly badly misread Webster’s character. For a brief while he’d thought that the Webster was somebody who might understand what it was like to steal for the thrill and the challenge but perhaps he’d only ever been in it for the money. It probably shouldn’t be such a shock, after all Webster had flat out admitted that he came from the same background Joe usually targeted, but Joe had thought Webster was a real thief not just an opportunist. The way Webster had sought vengeance on de Vere had suggested a pride that now seemed utterly absent as he fawned over Ryder. It wasn’t just about the money. If it was Joe would have grabbed a few pricey knick-knacks from Ryder and gone after an easier target. His real motive would always be about being the best, getting something the proved yet another unbreakable security system wasn’t up to the job and that no amount of money made the rich bastards he targeted untouchable.

That was why while Webster was busy wringing out whatever pennies he could get for throwing himself at Ryder, Joe had decided he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than Ryder’s vault.

Passwords that changed daily, constant CCTV monitoring, three different types of biometrics just to get to the top of the range safe, and Joe was going to beat them all.

Cameras were about as much of a deterrent as leaving a handwritten note saying ‘burglars keep out!’ for somebody of Joe’s skill level and Ryder’s facial recognition tech was hopelessly outdated, holding up a head-shot of one of the approved people would be enough to get him past. The other biometrics and the passwords would be trouble but Joe had circumvented both before, although biometrics sometimes involved getting a little up close and personal with the mark. Once he was in, cracking the safe would be like taking candy from a baby and Ryder’s endless snobbery meant that there were plenty of back hallways in the house that were designed to keep staff out of sight and perfect for making a surreptitious exit.

The job ought to be easy work with a little patience, but avoiding Webster was harder than it ought to be.

Joe didn’t scout out every party and Ryder’s mansion was a big place, there was no reason for their paths to cross every time Joe was in the building, but the paintings Joe gravitated towards when he was trying to look like he was doing something other than creating a mental map of the camera blind-spots were the ones that Webster lingered over, and very balcony he escaped to for a cigarette was the balcony Ryder had ushered Webster onto in order to share an intimate moment away from the party.

Even when they weren’t drawn close, every time they shared a room Joe couldn’t help but be hyper-aware of Webster and the way he hung on Ryder’s every word and clung to the man, wondering if this would be the time Webster decided the profitable move would be to tip off his sugar-daddy to Joe’s plans. After all, how could Ryder keep Webster in solid gold tie-clips and silken pocket squares if Joe robbed him blind?

Webster had said he wouldn’t tell, but who knew if Webster could be trusted? Sure, he could have been worse in Boston; and his actions in Berlin had been strange but harmless; and Oxford, well that had been a feat of brilliance, but that didn’t mean anything.

Plus, it was hard to miss that Webster was watching him right back. Web was careful about it, his eyes only strayed in Joe’s direction when Ryder was thoroughly distracted, usually because he’d been pulled into a side-room by his P.A for what Joe suspected where hasty arguments about Ryder’s impossible demands and the assistant’s failure to meet them. But the attention made Joe wary, maybe Webster was just curious, just understandably bored of having nothing to occupy his mind with except whatever idiocy Ryder wanted from him but Joe wasn’t willing to trust that theory.

The next time he caught Webster staring he decided to do something about it.

No surreptitious bathroom meetings this time, Joe waited until Ryder was off putting on a show for his party guests and sidled right up to Webster, who stood adrift in a sea of guests who had no interested in him beyond his connection to Ryder. He placed a hand on the small of Webster’s back, pulling him into a narrow corner so that their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.

“You’ve watching me,” he accused, pressing Webster up against the wall so they were mostly out of sight.

Webster rolled his eyes. “You’re not that interesting,” he said. “If you caught my eye it’s only because you stand out like a beacon in this crowd.”

Joe tutted. Webster could be such a good liar when he wanted to be, perhaps spending so much time around Ryder was dragging down his intelligence and leading him to lazy, transparent things lies like that.

“I’m blending just fine,” he said. Then he ran with a suspicion, leaning close to whisper in Webster’s ear, “Nobody else stares at me like you do.”

He could feel Webster shiver, but his voice was still cool as he said, “Well, they’re just visiting, they’re probably too busy being dazzled by just being at the party but I know better.”

“Not impressed by Ryder’s fabulous parties?” Joe pulled back with a smirk. “Bored?

“Just because you can’t focus on more than one thing at a time—” Webster started, but Joe didn’t let him finish.

"I’m not surprised. This is quite the step down. I thought your game was stealing money not whoring yourself out for it." Maybe getting in Webster’s face wasn’t the best tactic to avoid drawing attention but nobody at the party was going to pay Webster any attention when Ryder was prancing about on a platform at the other side of the room, talking loudly about the growing profit margins of the company that shared his name. Joe had hoped to land a hit to Webster’s ego, remind him of how much he was debasing himself just for a taste of a fortune, so unnecessary when if Boston were any indication he had more than enough talent to go out and steal his own riches and working with Joe he’d obliterated one of the most well secured private collections in Europe, but Webster just laughed.

“There are worse ways to earn money than by laying on silk sheets,” he said, giving a lazy shrug.

“Really?” Joe said, and he was sick of this crap. He shoved forward, one leg pressing between Webster’s because there was nowhere else for it to go in the tight half-alcove they stood in. “All you do is lay there? Is Ryder particularly into the cold fish act?”

"There’s nothing cold about it, Lieb. And what, I can’t take the easy route once in a while? Why steal when Henry buys me diamonds and thousand-dollar wine and all because I'm so good for him?"

"Good, huh? Let me guess, he’s got you playing at being his sweet, obedient boy, always ready to bend over and beg?" Joe fired back.

“Jealous?” Webster hissed. “Here you are organising drinks and entertainment while you scrabble around looking for your opportunity to grab a handful of his collection, while all I had to do to get it was ask nicely?”

Joe rolled his eyes. Webster could bullshit as professionally as he pleased, but there was nothing that could make Joe believe that this wasn’t just as much a chore for him as anything Joe was doing. Joe had seen how Web acted around Ryder, the cutesy pouts and coy looks, the way he let Ryder grab hold of him and steer him around the room, and it was easy to picture the show he’d put on in private, a hint of inexperience to make Ryder feel powerful, a whole lot of wants that could only be satisfied by accepting Ryder’s control — Webster pleading breathlessly for that scumbag to lay waste to him. It turned Joe's stomach. But it was only an act, Joe was sure of that. He'd felt how Webster fucked, pressed together across the leather seats of a stolen Aston Martin, and it was all grasping hands and sharp bites, slamming hips and challenging smirks as he demanded more. Webster might play at being easy, at being whoever his mark wanted him to be, but that was because Webster was conning Ryder. What Joe had was real.

"Oh, I’ll bet you fake it really pretty for him," Joe agreed, pressing his thigh at little further between Webster’s and feeling the telling hardness, mirroring his own reaction to their close quarters. "But next time he fucks you, I bet it's going to be me you think about when you come."

Webster’s glare as Joe stepped away was as good as a yes.

 

*

 

It was almost funny watching Web up his game after that. Joe had thought he’d been clingy with Ryder before but now Webster was practically throwing himself at the man, so desperate it bordered on indecent. None of it changed the fact that just as Joe had an eye on Webster during every moment he could spare from planning, Webster still couldn’t keep his eyes off of Joe.

Joe knew he was making all the right moves, taking it steady and pulling his plan together one careful piece at a time but every day spent glad-handing Ryder’s guests just to maintain his cover felt like a failure when he was being watched by another thief. He found himself wondering if there weren’t faster ways, then had to remind himself that taking shortcuts was what got people caught, got people killed if they were up against an aggressive enough player. Webster’s scrutiny was an unnerving reminder that Webster could rat him out to Ryder at any time and at the same time it made him want to push harder, a point of pride to prove to Webster that his methods wouldn’t fail him. That Webster’s way of handling Ryder would mean settling for second best.

Two parties later, it appeared that Webster’s displeasure with what he was seeing had got the better of him. The guests were leaving and Ryder was seeing them out when Webster caught Joe by the arm, forsaking alcoves and dragging him into a side-room instead.

“So, you’re having trouble?” he said, lashings of scorn pouring from every word.

Joe bristled. “What happened to staying out of each other’s way?” Yes he was, but it sure as shit wasn’t any of Webster’s business. There was no reason for him to prying into the progress of Joe’s heist unless he was planning on breaking their deal and interfering.

“I agreed to that when thought you were going to be in and out,” Webster said. “Not hanging around for weeks on end.”

“Well, that was your mistake,” Joe replied, pulling his arm out of Webster’s grip. He wasn’t still here because his plan had gone wrong, he’d always known there was going to be a lot more work to do once he’d gotten in and discovered the security measures he’d been to bypass. “Are we done?”

“No.” Webster snatched Joe’s arm back. “How much longer do you think this is going to take?”

Perhaps Webster was as frustrated by the situation as he was. Or perhaps he had some other agenda.

“I’ll finish the job when I’m ready to,” Joe huffed. Just because Webster had been here first, didn’t give him the right to hurry Joe’s work.

“Finish the job?” Webster rolled his eyes. “You’re still stuck on the biometrics to get near the vault, then you’d have to crack the safe.”

“Who says I’m stuck on the biometrics?” Joe bluffed.

“I’ve seen you studying them,” Webster said. “None of your usual tricks are going to work though, Ryder has a cutting edge system.”

“He does,” Joe conceded, “But no system is unbeatable.”

“Why not give up? Stop wasting your time and start over somewhere easier,” Webster said. “I mean, even if you can crack the biometrics, how are you going to get anything out?”

“Safes are easy, and I’m going to—” Joe hesitated. Why would Webster care about his methodology? Unless Web was planning to help Ryder catch him out. “Does he really have you so far under his thumb?”

Webster blinked and for a moment Joe thought he saw the tiniest slip in Web’s facade, he wasn’t sure what emotion he saw though because a moment later the cool mask had snapped back into place. “I’m not asking for his sake.” He sounded sincere but that didn’t mean anything, Webster was a professional liar. And even if he did mean it, that didn’t mean he could be trusted.

“Well, why do you want to know? So you can let me do all the work and then steal my take right out from under me again?” Joe finally shrugging Webster’s hand away.

“Are you talking about Boston? That’s not what happened,” Webster huffed. “And I’m just…”

He finally dropped Joe’s arm, taking a step back and turning to look towards the window.

Joe didn’t have time for this theatrical shit. “Well?”

Webster sucked his lower lip between his teeth. “I could get you past all the biometric security, if you have a solid exit plan and you’re willing bring some things out for me.”

“Uh-huh,” Joe said. “And how are you going to do that?” He hadn’t got the impression that Webster was a tech guy and even if he was what he was suggesting would be no mean feat.

“The whole house uses the same biometric security system,” Webster said. “And I live here.”

Joe scoffed. “Just because you can get into his bedroom, doesn’t mean you can get into his vault,” he said. “I know enough about those sorts of systems to know that he could key it to give you access to certain sections but not others.”

“He could,” Webster admitted. “He hasn’t. I visit the vault a few times a week when he’s busy and I’m free to do what I like. All the house staff know how much I admire the collection and Henry likes me admiring.”

Urgh. Joe didn’t want to imagine just how Ryder enjoyed Webster expressing that admiration. Still, "Three months and he's already given you full access to his vault?"

Webster laughed. “Oh Lieb, of course he has. This is what I do."

Joe shook his head. Maybe Webster was a pro, but a guy with Ryder’s money couldn’t possibly be so stupid. If he was, he’d have been taken for everything he had by gold-diggers long before Webster had come along. “So you just ran into him on a dock one day and a few days later he’d so in love with you he’s giving you free range?”

“Of course not,” Webster said, “First it was drinks, then dinner, balancing building up his ego without making things too easy for him. It took weeks.”

Weeks, Webster said, like that was a long time to work at having a billionaire throwing a fortune at his feet. “I’m sure it was such a hardship for you,” he said dryly. “All that work.”

Webster seemed to miss the sarcasm. “It was dreadful. He kept inviting me for trips on his yacht, but he never ever wanted to spend time up onto the deck,” he complained. “What’s the point of having a yacht and then staying indoors and not even seeing the ocean?”

Joe suspected he knew exactly what had been distracting Ryder from the call of the sea, although had Joe been in that position he would have just grabbed some sunscreen and taken Webster up on the deck, after all if it was a private yacht then there was no need to restrict certain activities to the bedroom.

“So what you’re telling me is that you have a billionaire wrapped around your pinky, and you’re going to risk that for a few paintings?” Joe said dubiously. He might not have ever been interested in putting himself in Webster’s current position, but he couldn’t deny that if Webster could keep Ryder sweet then it could be more profitable in the long run and the trade-off made no sense.

“It has to end sometime,” Webster said glibly. “And he’s got a Cézanne sitting unappreciated in storage that I want for myself.”

“Just like that,” Joe said, idly wondering which Cézanne would inspire Webster to bail on a life he seemed so comfortable in. “And here I was expecting a wedding invitation.”

Webster rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Even if I were planning on sticking around it would only be for however many months as it took him to get bored and want some new arm candy for a fresh round of showing off to his friends.”

“Oh, it’s like that it is?” Joe said. “Leave him before he leaves you.” Joe couldn’t pretend it was an unfamiliar approach, but it seemed a little premature here when Webster so clearly had Ryder thoroughly hooked. Even if Web didn’t think he could keep Ryder, that didn’t seem enough reason for him not take advantage for as long as he could.

“Are you going to share your exit strategy, or do you want to keep wasting your time on the biometrics?” Webster pressed.

Joe sighed. He didn’t want to give Webster a share of what he could take out, but if he declined then there was every chance that Webster would decide that since Joe wasn’t helping Webster was done keeping his real identity secret. “Alright,” he conceded. “The exit is the easiest part, my event staff I.D card means nobody would question a van coming or going on my command. It’s limited capacity but I can make a bit of room for your things if you insist. Give me a few days to get things in place, then you take me into the vault.”

 

*

 

It wasn’t how Joe was used to heists going and he wasn’t sure he liked it. It might not have been the suspicious variety of too easy, but it was certainly boring. All that planning and sneaking around and then Webster met him in the foyer, smiled at the security guys and walked them both right into the vault. It was so dreadfully anti-climatic.

It took a few minutes to go through all of the steps of the security process, a few minutes of Joe drumming his fingertips against his thigh waiting for an error message or an alarm, some indication that Webster had been cocky, that Ryder had been smart and not trusted Webster quite as much as Webster believed. But then, with a final eight digit code pressed into the keypad, there was an audible click and with a twist of the handle the vault door swung open, admitting them.

The inside was neat, not a hint of the cluttered mess that Joe sometimes had to content with. No, Ryder kept his treasures on neatly labelled shelves, sorted first by type and then alphabetically, and as the door swung shut behind them Joe stepped closer and saw the little cards accompanying each item that detailed the price Ryder had bought them for and their estimated market value, almost as if he’d planned it for the convenience of thieves looking for the most profitable haul.

“Are you sure the guards won’t question us taking stuff out?” he asked.

“No, it’s fine,” Webster said. “I’ve told them that Ryder wants to change up the displays on the mezzanine before next week’s party.”

It seemed flimsy to Joe, but Webster sounded assured enough and if they did get stopped he supposed he could always place all the blame on Webster and claim he’d been taken in by the same lie.

“The van I have can take six crates, if we can get that many down to the loading bay,” he said. “You can have one for your stuff. But I get first pick.”

Webster nodded. “I’m not picky, except for the Cézanne. That’s mine.”

Huh. He hadn’t expected Webster to agree, that had just seemed like a good point to open negotiations from.

“Really?”

“I told you what I wanted when we made the deal,” Webster repeated - which, yes he’d said and Joe had conceded but he’d figured that the Cézanne was just the most interesting item of a much longer list. “Then I’ll fill the crate out a few of the less interesting pieces that I can liquidate fast if I need to.”

"Really though? You were after one painting?" All this trouble, risking his relationship with Ryder, just so Joe could help him steal one painting that Web wouldn’t even be able to look at as long as he stayed with Ryder.

"That’s mostly a bonus, I only found out about it after I got here but I didn’t want to leave without it.”

Joe frowned. “I don’t get it, why steal it at all when it’s already here and Ryder would probably hang the damn thing over the bed if you asked him to?”

“I wouldn’t want it hanging over the bed,” Webster replied, with an air of disgust. “And I’m having you take it for me because getting access to Ryder’s biometric security system means that he knows all about me, even has my fingerprints on record. He could use that against me if I just stole the painting when I left, but if you take it now there’s nothing to connect it to me. In a month or two I’ll convince Ryder to lose interest if he hasn’t already and then he’ll forget all about me and I can reclaim the painting and move on to new work.”

“Wait,” that was a lot to take in but one thing stood out. “I thought you were leaving with me. If you stick around they’re going to know you were the one to let me in and if I’ve stolen the paintings surely that’ll bring you under suspicion anyway.”

Webster swallowed and ducked his head. “I know,” he said, forlorn. When he looked up, his eyes were wide and hurt. “I feel awful. Imagine being taken in like this. He told me it was part of the party arrangements, I thought it was what you wanted, Henry, I’m so sorry.”

Joe stared. The whole effect was quite disarming. “That’s…”

In a flash, Webster’s expression shifted from agonised to amused. “Worst case scenario, I’ll insinuate you seduced me into trusting you and he’ll be too jealous to care about the theft. But I doubt he thinks I’m smart enough to be an accomplice.”

“Did you ever like this guy?” Joe asked, because between the way Webster treated the end of the relationship like it was inevitable and had gone from acting like he was happy to have his world revolve around Ryder as long as Ryder was generous with his fortune to talking like this whole thing had only ever been a means to an end, it was starting to seem less like he'd grown bored with Ryder and more like Webster's game had always been meant to end like this. “I thought you were happy to be the trophy boyfriend instead of having to work for your money.”

Webster rolled his eyes. “I lied, Liebchen, haven’t you noticed that’s what I do? Playing the boy-toy is just a way to fill the time while I learn my way around his security systems at leisure. And his finances. Ryder has been embezzling funds from his company into an offshore account for years." Webster smirked. “Once I moved in it was easy enough to get the details and I’ve been siphoning those funds into a hidden account of my own since. And there's nothing he'll be able to do about it when he finds out because the money was never legally his.”

“Really? Why would he embezzle?” Joe asked. “He’s loaded, he hardly needs to take the risk.”

“He’s greedy, accustomed to getting everything he wants, and he’s never faced a real consequence in his life because he just buys his way out - why not take more?” Webster said. “But he won't see a penny of it. You aren't the first person to call me a whore, but no-one ever called me cheap."

“So you were only dating him so you could get close enough to rob him,” Joe concluded, walking along the shelves and beginning to pick out his choices for the first crate. It wasn’t an approach he could imagine taking, part of the thrill of the crime was knowing that you’d outsmarted security systems by being faster, smarter, better and Joe was pretty sure it wouldn’t feel like the same sort of victory if he’d got the codes on his knees or back, but he supposed if that was how Webster wanted to operate…

“Of course,” Webster said. “It was more work than I expected though. Do you have any idea how boring it is listen to a man who claims to be an art connoisseur but doesn’t actually realise Manet and Monet were two different painters?”

Joe gaped. “Seriously?”

Webster sighed. “He thinks the name is like the Berenstein/Berenstain Bears thing and half his collection is mislabelled accordingly,” he explained. Shit, Joe would have to take that into account when picking things off the shelves then. “I have to try not to scream at the sheer stupidity of it every time I walk past the ones he had displayed in the breakfast room.”

“Jesus,” Joe said. “I can’t believe you would let this guy put his dick near you, never mind in—”

“It’s how the con works,” Webster cut him off, dispassionate, “It can’t all be fun and games,” as he turned away to pull something off one of the higher shelves.

Joe grimaced. He played a part sometimes when he needed to for crimes, but never anything as full on as this. He’d always gone home at the end of the day, maybe to a place that suited his cover not his own taste, but he’d had room to breath instead of taking the act to bed with him. “You’ve done this before?” Joe asked, unsure he wanted to hear the answer. He couldn’t deny that his stomach twisted at the thought that this was Webster’s usual approach to crime.

Webster shrugged. “A few times, shorter cons though, the target is usually something more accessible than an offshore account. But honestly it’s rare I find somebody who’s worth the effort and my way inclined.”

Joe nodded and then, “Wait… are you sure when you said that de Vere screwed you over…?”

“No!” Webster’s nose wrinkled with disgust. “Urgh… there isn’t enough money in the world. And trust me, if I’d run this con on him I’d have left him so thoroughly bankrupted that there wouldn’t have been so much as family teapot left for you to steal from him once I was done.”

Joe shrugged. It wasn't such an outlandish suggestion. He'd never met the elder de Vere, but it simply wasn't possible to much more of a bore than Ryder. But he wasn’t here to critique Webster’s poor professional choices, he was here to load up five crates worth of art and ensure they ended up being better cared for than Ryder ever could. “So, if Ryder is an idiot who can’t tell Leonardo da Vinci from Leonardo DiCaprio, how much can I trust the labels on theses shelves?” he asked. Some of them seemed appealing, but he’d hate to unload at the end of the job and find he’d gone to all this effort for some tacky knock-offs.

“His curator handles most of the purchasing,” Webster assured him. “And everything I’ve looked at down here has been correctly labelled. The idiocy only starts once they’re in Ryder’s vicinity.”

“Well, that’ll make this a bit easier,” Joe said as he moved onto the second crate. There were a few pieces he was genuinely interested in, but Ryder’s collection seemed more aimed at showing off his wealth than any sense of taste so Joe made most of his selections based off which pieces seemed like they’d be easiest to move on the black-market.

He couldn’t help but noticing that he was doing most of the actual loading work, and sure five of the crates were for him so he was being less discriminating in his selection while Webster was picking through the options like a three year old who suspected dinner had been spiked with vegetables, but that didn’t make it okay.

It was a bit late to complain though, as he was already working on his final crate and all that was left was to use the hand truck to get them down to the van.

“So how are we doing this? I mean, I’m not a storage facility but you can’t exactly come pick up your crate at the weekend, and anyway, if you think I’m gonna show you my safehouse—”

“Not an issue. I have a P.O box you can send the crate once you’re clear,” Webster said. “I’ll pick it up once this is all wrapped up.”

“You trust me to do that?” Joe said incredulously. He was a thief, for fucks sakes, and Webster might be strange but surely not that stupid? If Webster was staying here then taking the whole lot and running would be the easiest option for Joe, never-mind the most profitable. Joe wouldn’t do that, he had too much pride in his professional credibility, but there were few people in their line of work who took that as seriously as he did, and it was an incredibly insubstantial thing for Webster to bank on.

“You were the one loading the car in Oxford. You could have driven away with everything while I was getting the fire going,” Webster pointed out. “You wouldn’t have gotten away with it, I dropped one of my phones in the first crate with the GPS tracker on just in case you were planning on screwing me over—”

“What!”

“—but you could even argue that wouldn’t have been breaking our deal, since all we agreed to was that you’d get me in so I could start the fire. But you didn’t even try. You waited and…”

Joe looked away. Technically he would have been well with in their terms to have made a quick getaway with all of the profit, but it hadn’t even occurred to him to do so. He’d been having too much fun revelling in their cleverness and had been more than satisfied with that he had got out of their arrangement. It wasn’t the behaviour of a professional, but then, neither was this chit chat when they should be moving the art so he could make his escape. Webster was a distraction.

“Right, well, if you want me to send your things on then you’d best help me get this stuff out to the van,” he said.

Webster didn’t seem suited to manual labour, even now that he’d let the persona he’d been using on Ryder slip, but he loaded the crates without complaint and it was only a few minutes before they were done.

Joe wiped his hands. “I guess this is it.” For a moment he thought about kissing Webster, just to hammer home the point that he was wasting his time playing docile for Ryder, but the gesture might be confused with a sentimental one and while Webster was undeniably interesting Joe wasn’t foolish enough to mix up attractive prospects with advisable ones. He turned away.

“Right. And there’s a security sweep due in a few minutes so unless you want to force me to have to use those excuses on Henry—” A petty part of Joe still did, but common sense overruled. “—you need to get going.”

“Alright, alright, fuck Web, anybody would think you didn’t enjoy my company,” he groused, climbing into the cab of the van.

“Whatever makes you think I do?” Webster said, and Joe laughed.

“Bet I’m the first intelligent conversation you’ve had in months,” he said. Possibly even since they’d parted ways in Oxford. Webster could have warned Joe away from the Cézanne and left him to it, but instead he’d hung around to explain his whole plan and bitch about Ryder, and from the sounds of it Joe was fairly convinced Web had been on the verge of going half-mad from boredom. “Have fun dumping Ryder,” he added, shifting the van into first. “You’re gonna miss me.”

He gunned the clutch too hard to hear Webster’s response, but it didn’t matter. Joe knew what the truth was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
> _“This will be one for the records. It’s ambitious. Risky.”_  
>  “It’ll work; I’ve got everything figured out.”  
> “No chance of any last minute problems?”  
> “You know me better than that.”  
> 


	5. Episode 5 - Trust

**_Chicago, Illinois - October 2016_ **

 

The truth was, as many problems as it minimised, working alone wasn't without it's downsides.

Joe never had to worry about a knife in the back mid-job, but he was also limited. There were a whole lot of buildings best approached from multiple angles, jobs that required decoys or support, places where there were scores that were big enough to split but couldn't be got to alone. It was the most effective second layer of security a place could have. If security required multiple people to break it then it didn't matter how easy each person’s role would be, whatever was behind the security was probably safe — no matter how big the score it was hard to get thieves working together.

Joe had no interest in forming a permanent crew - being responsible for a bunch of idiots sounded stressful and likely to end in competition, in-fighting, and disaster. Joining up with a bigger crime outfit wasn’t an option either, Joe didn't like to get too close to organised guys if he could help it. Oh, they made flashy, tempting offers, but the tangles of loyalties and debts that everyone who got near them seemed to find themselves embroiled in was more trouble than the pay-outs were ever worth. At any rate, Joe wasn't Italian, Irish, or Russian and had no interest in getting mixed up in any group that would treat him as second-class citizen, whatever some people might say about that mattering less these days.

No, Joe was a solo operator and happy with that.

Until it came to the Chicago Gallery of Fine Arts.

Crowded, heavily guarded, full of art that wasn't just valuable but actually tasteful, and of course the most important thing: nobody had ever robbed it.

There weren’t many other galleries which could claim that. Some places never had a big break-ins, never had much taken, never let it be publicised, but the list of galleries with an international profile whose security had never been penetrated was a very short one and anybody who cracked a gallery like that would get their name on a very exclusive list.

A list that Joe wanted to be a part of. Knowing he was one of the best was one thing, proving it was another.

He'd been quietly keeping an eye on the place for years, hoping that one day he'd find a way to be the first, that nobody would beat him to the punch, and he'd finally spotted a weakness but it wasn't one he could exploit single-handed.

Joe didn't like working with others, but that didn't mean he couldn't do it when provided with sufficient motivation, and being the first person to take the CGFA was a goal worth a lot of compromises.

Of course, it was one thing to acknowledge that he'd need to work with somebody, but he wasn't going to work with just anyone. Anybody he brought in on this job had to be available and willing, which unfortunately ruled out Skinny who would have been an ideal pick if he weren’t so unwilling to get his hands dirty with physical rather than digital crime; skilled, but that was easy, he knew plenty of crooks who were among the best at what they did; they had to be trustworthy, at least for the length of the job, which was harder; and then there was the real puzzle, they had to people Joe was willing to share the credit with. On a practical level it wasn’t so important, but if he was making his name on this job then he needed to be careful of who he tied himself to.

Nobody really fell into that category, he didn't want any other name linked to the heist, especially not when he was the brain behind it, but he'd have to tolerate somebody.

As he’d thought it over he'd written the lists out, old-school style, first who had the skills to do what the job required. Then he'd struck off anybody who had a history of being unreliable, untrustworthy, or who actively disliked him. Then he looked through the rest and discarded anybody who gave him a bad feeling, he might not be able to justify his discontent about working with them but Joe had learnt to trust his instincts. Anyway, working with somebody he had doubts about —however irrational— was an unacceptable distraction in any job, in this job it was intolerable.

The list he was left with was short, but it had enough names for the job. It would be easiest with a team of five or six, but if he could find people who covered more than one skill-set that meant less people to share the credit and the score with, plus it would lower the number of people who could stab him in the back.

He'd gone to the obvious people first, the ones he knew were open to team-ups and who made themselves contactable, and then worked his way deeper into his shadier contacts. He'd never expected to have his pick of the list; some people were bound to be uninterested or unavailable but the results he got were still disappointing. Prison from people Joe thought knew better than to get caught; others claimed they were out of the game, which was senseless and unfathomable; a few un-contactable, just annoying; and one was pulling some long job in New Zealand of all the fucking places.

At the end of a week of calling and emailing and hours spent tracing lists of aliases and rumours to find where certain people were hiding Joe had exhausted his list of potential candidates and had only one yes.

It wasn’t enough. Even with everything cut down to basics, the Chicago Gallery of Fine Arts wasn’t a two-man job.

He sighed and went back to his earlier lists, scouring for any name that might be salvageable. One good partner and one mediocre one might cut it.

It took him three days to settle on a candidate. The only person from his original rejected list who might be viable, who Joe’s reasons for rejecting in the first place were flimsy. If this call didn't work out then he'd just have to put Chicago off for a while, wait for better people to be available and hope nobody else made a play for it in the meantime.

He called David Webster.

He hadn't even been sure the number Webster had given him alongside the PO box address would still work, it had been months and though Web had said it wasn't linked to the persona he'd been using with Ryder and so wouldn’t be burned at the end of the job, people in their line of work still changed numbers often.

It was almost a relief when he didn't get through.

Frustrating, not to be able to take the gallery, but at least he’d been spared having to ask Webster for help.

There were other crimes. Maybe they weren't the kind of crimes that would set him down in history, but glory wasn't everything. Breaking a new security system at a place that had been worked over before was still an achievement, even if it wasn't as iconic, and there was good art in places other than Chicago.

Joe didn't need Webster, hadn't even particularly wanted him.

But three days later when Webster called him back, Joe couldn't quite keep from grinning as he saved the new number.

They were going to Chicago.

 

*

 

Joe had done all his scouting of the location on previous visits to the city and so he kept the planning to phones and emails, arranging to meet the others just forty-eight hours before he wanted to put the plan into action.

He was fairly sure he wasn't being monitored by any kind of law enforcement but there was always the risk that some random passer-by was one of those people who read wanted lists of fun and would recognise his face and call in a sighting, and he had no idea how closely the movements of his two would-be partners were being tracked and if somebody was aware of their movements the three of them converging on a city would be far too big of a red flag to ignore. No, this job needed to be in and out, and then Joe would be sliding under the radar for a while and if the others had even half the brains he thought they did they'd be doing the same.

He'd booked a hotel room, a place expensive enough to be discreet but still busy enough that he could blend in with the flow of tourists, well known as the best friend of anybody who might need to act oddly without it seeming noteworthy.

The place had a restaurant and he could have invited the others there but tradition and good sense dictated the first meeting go down in public and away from where he was staying. He didn't think either of the men he was meeting would double cross him and they must have trusted him if they'd agreed to come, but as far as Joe knew they'd never met each other but if he was mistaken and they had a bad history it was better that was unearthed somewhere crowded with plenty of witnesses to keep things going too far off the rails - or at the very least a crowd for Joe to disappear into should things start to look like too much trouble.

A bar was always a good pick for meetings like that - loud enough to maintain a degree of privacy but open enough that everyone would be on their best behaviour. In theory, anyway.

As the man behind the plan, it fell to Joe to set the time and location, but he still got there an hour before he’d told the others too — being their first made him look in control and he had no doubt that the other two would be checking the place out before they approached. He picked out a seat near enough the bar for quick service but far enough away that there wasn't too much passing foot traffic and nursed a drink while watching the door for Webster's arrival.

There was no point watching for Ron. He'd enter surreptitiously and reveal himself to Joe when he decided he wanted to be seen and not a moment sooner. Back in the days when Joe's skills had been all about the physical part of stealing not the planning part it had been Ron who had served as his most consistent mentor, there were no concerns about this job linking his name with Ron’s when they’d already done so much together, and he'd long since given up trying to see the man when he didn't want to be seen. Ron was the best at what he did.

It took about thirty minutes for Webster to arrive, not unexpectedly early. He was dressed a little more smartly than most of the crowd but not so much that he stood out and Joe wondered if he'd looked the place up beforehand. He blended with the crowd and Joe watched as he visibly picked out the exits and the quickest ways to get to them. There was a tense set to his shoulders, like maybe he wasn't so sure about this job after all and Joe felt himself gritting his teeth in response. This could only work if they were all committed. Webster had said he was in, but Joe wasn’t sure he trusted that. Joe didn't bother to hide as Webster moved up to the bar and so when Webster was done ordering and turned back towards the club he spotted where Joe was sat right away.

"You said there was somebody else?" he asked as he sat down opposite Joe, looking around as if expecting a third person to appear from thin air, which in Ron’s case wasn't entirely out of the question.

"You're early," Joe pointed out. Sure, he'd been earlier, but he was the one to set up the meet and it was poor form not to be ready for the first arrival even if that first arrival insisted on arriving well in advance to scope out the exits.

"Of course I am," Webster said. "Who would wait until the last second to turn up somewhere?"

Joe said nothing.

"So, this job..." Webster continued, and Joe shook his head.

"I already told you the basics. Wait until Ron gets here for the rest, I'm not explaining it twice."

Webster sipped his drink and eyed Joe with poorly concealed curiosity. Given how good of a liar he was Joe didn't doubt that he wasn't trying that hard to cover up his nosiness.

"Ron?" Webster asked. "Your third man?"

"Yeah, Ronald Speirs," Joe said, and smirked at the way Webster's eyes widened. Speirs was something of a myth, a once-in-a-century thief whose name would go down in history except for the fact he'd never come close enough to being caught to have it on any official record. He'd been quiet the last few years and Joe hadn't been sure if Webster would have heard the stories if he hadn't been in the game as long as Joe had, but it looked like he knew enough to be awed. Good. Maybe that would keep him in line.

Joe took a pull of his beer and waited, wondering if Webster would press, but it seemed he was the sort to play it cool when faced with the prospect of meeting a legend. Web glanced down at his watch and then sipped his drink some more and waited until Joe was pretending to be distracted by some passing girls in short skirts to surreptitiously use his reflection in the glass check his hair. That was a dead giveaway that Webster didn't know anything more than the vaguest stories about Ron because if he had he'd know there was no way Ron would give a fuck.

"Long trip?" he asked casually when Webster had stopped primping. The talks they'd had on the phone hadn't given away where Webster had been or what he'd been doing when Joe had extended the invitation, all he knew was that whatever it was it was sufficiently unimportant that Webster hadn't hesitated to drop it and fly to Chicago to be part of a plan Joe hadn't even fully explained.

Webster shrugged. "You know how it is," he said. "Nothing feels far if you’re prepared to pay for a decent class of travel."

Unhelpful. Sure, Joe was just being nosey, but what could Webster possibly have been doing that was trivial enough to ditch at a moment’s notice but still required him to be elusive. Unless he was just doing it to be annoying. That was a distinct possibility.

He kept his eyes on his beer after that, if Webster wanted to be annoying then he’d have to be proactive about it, Joe wasn’t going to give him any openings.

When it happened, it was more of a sense than any specific giveaway. Perhaps the faintest shift in the atmosphere of the room or a flicker in the shadows that bypassed the conscious mind and registered only to deeper instincts.

Ron had arrived.

Joe sat back and sure enough a moment later Ron slipped through the crowds like he'd simply manifested in the huddles of bodies, pulling a seat from a nearby table to sit at right angles to both of them.

"Liebgott," he said, with a quiet nod of greeting. His gaze flicked briefly over Webster, and Joe felt a little nostalgic at the way Ron could simply look at person and have the measure of them, before his eyes were back on Joe and he said, "You want to pull this thing right away?"

Joe nodded. “I did all the recon a while back,” he explained, perhaps it was embarrassing how long he’d had his mind fixed on this gallery, especially when talking to somebody like Ron who already had the legend status that Joe was not so subtly chasing, but he wasn’t ashamed of his ambition. He outlined exactly what it was he had discovered and how he intended for them to use that information.

And then he waited.

Joe wasn't the kind of guy who chased approval, fuck knew if Webster had tried to pick faults Joe would have kicked him to the curb and replaced him in a heartbeat, but this was Ron. They might not be what they once were, but Ron's opinion still meant something and it mattered to him.

Ron nodded.

"Good," he said. "Quick, clean, I like it."

 Joe started to smile but it seemed Ron wasn’t done.

"Just one thing," he said, and Joe's stomach lurched. Had he missed something? "Why not do this on your own? You know extra bodies are an unnecessary risk."

That was typical Ron. Even back when they had worked together it had only been on jobs that Ron couldn’t do alone. He wasn’t the only person who’d contributed to Joe’s philosophy of never getting mixed up with people he didn’t need to, the guys that had set him up to take the fall with Sink had done that, but Ron had helped him refine it, turned it from paranoid universal mistrust into a refined efficiency.

In this case though, the risk of trusting Web was necessary, he was unlikely to fuck things up from incompetence and while there was still the chance of Web betraying them, Joe figured the odds were lower than with the average crook especially from how impressed he’d seemed when Joe had mentioned he was bringing Ron in even if he had been quiet since the man had joined the table.

Joe shrugged. "It's faster. There's no getting around the alarms, somebody has to hit the security office and bring them offline. Going from security to the gallery proper takes too long, they need separate people covering them."

Ron sipped his drink. "That explains you bringing in a partner," he said slowly, "But why a third?"

Across the table Webster shifted in his chair, finally seeming like he was paying attention.

"Because for this to work,” he explained. “We're also going to need a distraction to get the guards away from the control room so that whoever is taking the security down can get in."

Ron frowned. "Why not just take them out?"

Joe sighed. He'd considered it, but if something went wrong people would react far worse to violence than they did to a more everyday disturbance and there was no need to risk the extra heat. “It’s cleaner not to. Anyway, take a guard out and somebody is bound to notice that they’re missing pretty shortly after, distract a guy for ten minutes and he’ll be covering his own ass thoroughly enough that it could be hours before anybody notices that something isn’t right.” It was the smart play, he was sure of that, but he couldn’t pretend Ron’s scrutiny didn’t have him second guessing himself. Was there a better way to do this that he’d missed? Ron was the best of the best and perhaps he’d seen something Joe hadn’t. It was almost enough to make him regret bringing Ron in for this job but no, this was Joe’s plan, his moment of brilliance, and he trusted Ron not to undermine that. However off-putting his silent contemplation could be.

“So who’s the decoy, Liebling?” Webster cut in, and Joe rolled his eyes.

Ron raised his eyebrows at Webster’s use of the endearment but Joe just shrugged. He could finally explain to Webster that he’d asked to be called Lieb in Berlin because that was his fucking name, but Joe had a reputation and Webster wasn’t stupid so there was no way he hasn’t asked around after three run-ins, meaning he knew damn well what Joe’s name was and was deliberately persisting with the misunderstanding for the sake of being an asshole. Anyway, it was kind of entertaining to hear what variation Webster would come up with next. “I thought we established last time we met that playing dumb doesn’t suit you Web,” he said. The need for an excellent decoy was the main reason Joe had been willing to reconsider on Web despite his initial doubts. Joe knew a lot of thieves who could hustle somebody when they needed to, but Webster’s approach in Boston and against Ryder left Joe with the suspicion that he was a grifter first, the stealing more of a perk than the goal, and since Joe wanted this job to be flawless it made sense to have an expert distract the guards.

Webster sighed, slumping in his seat. “Right,” he said. “And who am I letting in?”

“Ron.” Joe had thought about assigning Ron to the take, it made sense since Joe had better knowledge of the security systems and Ron was the more experienced thief, but this was his big moment he wanted to be the point-man and Ron was plenty capable of learning what he needed to do with the security system at short notice.

“Right. I just distract the guards in the security room while Ron here—” Joe grimaced, he might be close enough to Ron to assume first name basis even after all these years, but Webster was a stranger and while Ron might not have react obviously that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be irked by the presumption “—handles all the actual security so that you can get whatever it is you're after. Sounds great,” he said, deadpan.

Joe stared at him, not quite sure why Webster had thought for a moment his role in the plan wouldn’t be what it was nor why he made it sound like Joe was asking for something objectionable when it was hardly different from the sort of jobs Webster had been doing during their other encounters. If Joe didn’t know better he’d think Webster was worried that being the decoy would mean the highest risk of getting cut out or left to take the fall, and maybe in a sloppier crew that would be understandable but in this case it made Joe scowl and wave the bartender over for a refill. One hundred percent trust was always foolish in their line of business, but they both already knew Joe had repeated opportunities to screw Webster over for profit and taken none of them. He had even trusted Joe to mail him that goddamn Cézanne and Joe had done it despite the fact it had involved so much fuckery trying to find a shipping company because Joe had figured Webster would want his crate of valuable art sent via registered delivery but most of the major brands wouldn’t send things tracked to PO boxes where they couldn’t be signed for. The wariness on Webster’s face now was just insulting.

“Yes. You have the easy job,” he said, letting his own irritation slip through. “Ron and I will be doing all the heavy lifting.” Webster didn’t look nearly as satisfied as he ought to, but Joe had a crime to explain and no time to deal with mood swings.

He turned away from Webster, he could get with the program or he could sulk but Joe wasn’t going to deal with the latter, handing Ron the flash-drive that held everything he’d learnt about the security system the gallery used and how it was controlled. He trusted Ron to study it comprehensively in the time before the heist, but he still ordered another beer for himself and a scotch for Ron so that he could give him an immediate overview.

Ron was a quick study, had always been good with security systems and had a lot of questions about not just his own task but about how Joe was getting in that weren’t relevant to his task but Joe could hardly deny Ron’s professional curiosity. Even after all this time he felt a twinge of satisfaction at the way Ron nodded as he explained his entry point, a glow of pride at hearing his planned route through the exhibits called ‘smart’ - it had been a long time since he’d needed Ron’s instruction but being able to prove how far he’d come and see Ron’s admiring smile made him feel twenty again, young and wild and basking in the glow of being picked out for the attentions of a genius, though this time it had been him who’d picked Ron.

Halfway through his explanation, Webster had stood up.

“You know there’s table service?” Joe pointed out. “You don’t need to go to the bar for a refill.”

“I think I’m done,” Webster said, and Joe didn’t think he was talking about his empty glass.

“You’re out?” He’d got the impression Webster wasn’t as enthusiastic about the job as he was but he hadn’t suspected that Webster might walk away.

Webster bit his lip. “I don’t think I’m relevant to this,” he said coolly. “If you want me to deal with the guards then I need information on them, not on the electronics, and since you’re clearly going to be no help with that…”

Oh. Oh, that was fine. “Sure, sure,” he said, waving Webster away. “You go do whatever you need to do.” He figured Webster’s part was easy, but if Webster wanted to sit around pre-planning his lines then he was welcome to go do that. “Check in tomorrow at noon.”

There was a pause, then Webster nodded and walked away.

Joe turned back to Ron, picking up his explanation of how his and Ron’s parts of the plan would work.

“This will be one for the records,” Ron said, when he finished his drink. “It’s ambitious. Risky.”

“It’ll work,” Joe assured him. “I’ve got everything figured out.”

Ron nodded. “No chance of any last minute problems?”

Joe laughed. “You know me better than that,” he said. “Tomorrow, at 11pm, we strike. By midnight we’ll be the first people to crack the Chicago Gallery of Fine Arts, better than a century of thieves who tried and failed, out clean and splitting the loot.”

 

*

 

Joe hadn’t planned on a second meeting, but plans changed and after Web’s early departure from their first meeting he wanted to make sure they were all on the same page. Ron seemed disdainful when Joe informed him of this plan, but Joe assured him that it wasn’t that he thought that Ron needed anything explaining twice, but for the job to go off right then they needed to be able to work together. Too much of his plan depended on timing and communication for their to be any hesitancy between them. Joe wasn’t keen on working with others, Ron generally despised it, and Joe had no idea what Webster thought of collaboration in general but he certainly hadn’t seemed keen last night. It didn’t matter. Little as he liked it, they needed to be a team.

So they were doing brunch.

Not because Joe particularly liked brunch, as meal or as a concept, but because he hadn’t put the plans in place in time for breakfast, dinner was cutting things too close, and Webster claimed to have already made lunch plans with an acquaintance in the city that he refused to cancel despite the fact that social calls while in the midst of preparing for a heist were utter idiocy.

It had also sapped the last of Joe’s sympathy for Webster.

On his way home from the bar it had occurred to him that perhaps Webster’s recalcitrance that night had been because he was intimidated or awed by Ron. He’d hardly be the first person to do so, Ron was a legend after all. He’d hoped a second meeting might allow Web to be a little less star-struck, but the revelation that their job was apparently Webster’s second priority had brought Joe back to the theory he’d had upon first meeting Webster, namely, that Webster was a dick.

Still, the meeting went ahead.

Joe wasn’t much in the mood for eating, ordered a bagel because it would be a dick move to claim the best table in the cafe (the one in the corner that lent it’s occupants a little privacy) and buy nothing, while Ron stuck to coffee. Webster ordered nothing, confirming Joe’s theory.

He went through the plan a second time, because while his and Ron’s parts might not directly affect Web he still needed to know. It all came down to timings in the end, to Webster keeping the guard away for long enough that Ron could do what he needed to let Joe pull of the actual taking part of the job.

Webster’s part of the job was the most fragile, the one that required the most trust from Joe, but he didn’t seem to be treating it that way. Keeping the guard away from his post for long enough was hardly a minor task, there was a reason that Joe had deliberately looked for a career grifter to fill the role, but while it ought to be easy for somebody with Webster’s skills, Joe couldn’t help but feel wary at the flippancy with which he treated the role, refusing to even outline the approach he planned to use.

The brunch didn’t last long; how could it when Joe was the only one eating? Ron excused himself promptly but Webster lingered, making a a grand show of fussing with his phone until Ron was out the door and then he slipped the phone into his pocket and fixed Joe with a serious look.

“Are you sure about Speirs?” he asked quietly.

Joe stared at him. “What?”

“Are you sure about having him in on this job?” Webster repeated. “We could always find somebody else and try again another time.”

Joe bristled. The nerve of Webster, saying ‘we’ could do anything when this was Joe’s plan, would be his victory, with the people he’d picked for the job, no matter what problems Webster had with that.

“Ron’s fine,” Joe said. Webster on the other hand, he was beginning to have doubts about. He was tempted to point out to Webster that he was the one who Joe had only picked for the job because everybody else had said no while Ron had been his first pick.

“I read people,” Webster said insistently. “And this guy… he’s hiding something, I can tell.”

Joe nearly laughed. Hiding something? Of course Ron was hiding something, the man was a professional thief, they all had their secrets. “I get it,” he said, not even bothering to try and mask the condescension in his voice with faux-pity. “You do small time scams and gold-digging, working with a real professional like Ron is weird for you—” Pissing off a partner less than twenty-four hours before a heist was a move Joe knew better than to indulge in, but he couldn’t help himself. Webster had agreed to the job, sounded interested enough on the phone, and his sudden turn towards being uncooperative when faced with actually doing it was as nonsensical as it was infuriating.

“He’s not that special,” Webster said, a blatant lie. Ron was the best of the best. “I can see what you feel— think of him, but that doesn’t make him right for the job.”

“Do you want out?” Joe snapped. It would be annoying to rearrange the job because Web had got cold feet, but that was better than Web staying in and then blowing it.

Webster bit his lip, and for a moment seemed to seriously consider the question. “No,” he said finally. “No, I can do my part. Like you keep saying, it’s easy. And if I let the guard go back to his post once Speirs has had his time in the security booth I can be long gone before there’s any risk. You already have my P.O box to send my share on to.”

“You’re not sticking around?” Joe said, startled. They hadn’t talking about that part, he’d just assumed that they’d rendez-vous after the job to split the loot - it was the most practical solution after all.

Webster’s expression darkened. “No,” he said. “But I’m sure you and Ron can enjoy celebrating on your own.”

Well, Joe hadn’t planned to mess around with having to mail one of the statues, but if those were the terms Webster wanted to do the job on…

“Just be ready tomorrow night,” he said shortly. He’d fantasied about this job for so long, but the reality of it was turning out to be a headache. Ron definitely had the right idea with his fixation of working alone.

 

*

 

They met a few blocks away from the gallery for the final preparations. Webster was dressed in a mid-range suit, the embodiment of generically attractive and non-threating, giving away no clues as to how he intended to lure the security away; while Joe and Ron were both dressed in grey. Getting spotted shouldn’t be an issue, but being able to blend in with the shadows was always good insurance and dark jeans and faded shirts were inconspicuous enough that if they did end up crossing paths with someone unexpectedly they wouldn’t immediately look like thieves.

Now for the part Joe was especially pleased with. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ear-buds he’d brought for them. They’d cost a small fortune, the kind of high-end tech that was overkill on most jobs, but this job would only work if they were in sync and since they couldn’t rely on set timings to predict how long Webster would need to distract the guards or how quickly Ron could shut down the security they needed to stay in contact, and Joe had already discovered the the gallery had terrible cell phone coverage which meant investing in specialist gear.

Ron didn’t look very impressed by the development, but then given how high end his usual work was Joe supposed he used advanced tech often. Webster just looked annoyed, but he’d been moody ever since he arrived.

“These should keep things running smoothly,” Joe said. “Web, you’re up first. Clear the guard booth, take all the time you need, and then signal to Ron when he’d good to go.”

“I know,” Webster said, with an eye-roll, “We’ve been over this how many times?”

“What’s the signal?” Ron said, and Joe stared at him.

It was an uncharacteristically dumb question and it made Joe wonder what Ron had been doing while off the grid. Joe had assumed he had just been doing work so stealthy it hadn’t even provoked rumours, but that made him wonder if Ron had let himself get a little rusty. No. More likely he’d just been sticking to solo work where he wouldn’t need to think about signals. “Whatever he needs it to be to work it into conversation without the guards realising he’s giving a signal,” Joe said. “I’m sure you’ll know it when you hear it.”

Ron didn’t look pleased by that but Joe was sure he didn’t need babying either. Picking up a subtle signal was well within Ron’s skill-set, maybe he was dubious of Webster’s ability to give such a signal but Joe had decided this was how things were going down and Ron ought to know to trust him by now.

“Follow Web’s lead, get it and take the security offline and then signal me,” Joe continues. “Webster, you need to keep the guard away for at least ten minutes, five for Ron to bring the security down—”

“It won’t take me that long,” Ron interjected.

Joe shook his head. “Five to take the security down, maybe you can cut off a few seconds but I don’t want anything getting that close, then Ron you need to stay on the security to keep it from automatically reactivating for at least five minutes, longer if Webster can keep the guard away but don’t take any unnecessary risks - if it sounds like he’s loosing the guard—”

“Which won’t happen,” Webster snapped.

“—If Web’s part goes wrong and the guard comes back early, we abort immediately. The timings are too delicate on this to try and risk it anyway. Once Ron restarts the system, it takes two minutes for the security to come back on-line completely, so that gives me seven minutes to get in and out from when you turn it off.”

“That’s not long enough for you to get from the perimeter into the main gallery,” Ron pointed out.

Joe nodded. It had frustrated him in the planning but eventually he’d had to concede that it just wasn’t going to happen. “No, but this isn’t about getting the best haul, it’s about being the first. There are a few nice statuettes just off the foyer that will make perfect trophies.” He supposed that the other two might sell theirs once they were away instead of using them as mementos, it's not his call what they do with their shares of the take, but Joe will definitely be keeping his. This heist wasn't about the money, it's about winning. From the look on Webster's face, he understands exactly what Joe means, no surprise - Oxford had been an excellent object lesson in just how far Webster was willing to go to make a point. Ron mostly looks blank, but that's not such a surprise either - for Ron it was always about the result not the method, he stole for the pleasure of having rather than the pleasure of stealing, it was part of the reason he and Joe had eventually parted ways.

It was time to move but Joe hesitated, trying to think if there was anything else he needed to add. He’d planned this in such meticulous detail that it was hard not to worry that there was some part of his plan that Speirs or Webster might not get because they hadn’t put the months of thought into it that he had but between the call he'd used to bring them in, their meeting at the bar and brunch he must have told them everything they needed to know even if he hadn’t gone into the reasonings behind all his choices. "Okay, we'll split now,” he said. “Ron, you and Web head towards the east doors, then you hang back while Webster goes after the guard. I'll be on the west side of the building, and we meet afterwards as discussed."

Ron nodded, smart and professional, while Webster rolled his eyes but they both moved off towards their assigned position. Joe took a deep breath and turned westward.

Months of planning and it would all be over less than half an hour from now.

He walked until the others were both decidedly out of natural earshot and then said, "Comms check." If there was a problem would be a little late to do anything about it, but there shouldn't be any problems because Joe sourced his tech well and checked everything thoroughly before the job, but he wanted them comfortable with the tech before they go on.

"Clear," Ron said.

There's a pause, then Webster said, "Is there a way of silencing these? Because I don't need you in my ear while I'm talking to the guard."

His whiney tone should have been annoying, but just this once Joe laughed a little. Yeah, he could imagine that even for a pro like Webster it might be a bit off-putting to try and run a con on somebody with chatter directly in his ear. "You can't shut it off," he said, "But we're keeping to necessary communication only."

There was a faint hum over the line, like Webster might be grumbling too low to be picked up by the microphone, but he'd just have to deal with it.

When he reached the west door, Joe settled in to wait. There was nothing he could do now but listen for Ron's signal.

Well, and eavesdrop on Webster working on the guard, but that was hardly interesting enough to distract from the anticipation of what he was about to do. Webster hadn’t mentioned how he was going to distract the guards and Joe had declined to ask. He was curious, but if he listened he knew he’d be tempted to pass comment and he wouldn’t have brought Webster in if he didn’t think he could manage one simple task and he was entirely sure that Web would balk at being micromanaged.

He counted the seconds instead, one minute slipping by and then another. He knew he had five to wait for Ron to bring the security down once he was in but that count only started once Webster had cleared the way.

Joe tried not to let his mind wander but he decided that he and Ron _would_ celebrate when this was over even if Webster apparently planned to bail as soon as his part was finished, and Joe really should have said something about getting his comm back off him but he supposed if an earpiece was the cost of doing business then he could live with that. He couldn't let himself think about the prospect of his victory too much for fear of jinxing it, but he couldn’t push it entirely out of his mind either. He couldn’t revel in his triumph for long, not when the smart thing to do was separate and get out of the city before suspicious eyes fell in their directions but Joe was going to find time to enjoy this victory, at least a little bit. Drinks with Ron, and then a few transport hops under different I.Ds until he was thoroughly untraceable, then that statuette was going in the spot that had been waiting in his most reliable safe-house for far too long.

The sound of Webster talking the guards away was little more than white noise, but Joe sharpened up when he heard Ron say, “I’m in the security control room.”

He’d meant to listen for Webster’s signal to Ron, as a cue that his own part was coming up, but while the plan required precision, it wasn’t so close the half second it took Joe to stop slouching against the wall was going to have an impact. “I’m ready when you are,” he said, straightening up. He was waiting just out of the external security cameras’ coverage area but as he waited he mapped out his route to the building with his eyes, up and over the fence then skirting the edges of the courtyard sticking to the shadows because they couldn’t turn the external lights off with attracting attention and there was nothing Ron could do to prevent a random passer-by seeing him, up to the doors. Physical and electric locks was a smart security feature, but once Ron was in the computers he could shut down the electric locks so Joe was left with the relatively simple task of picking the manually controlled one. As he waited he kept counting time, curious as to just how close to his five minute estimate Ron would come.

At four minutes thirty-one Ron gave him the all clear.

“Wait! The external security alarms are flashing deactivated but they aren’t fully powered down,” Webster complained, voice startling in Joe’s ear. Clearly whatever Webster had distracted the guard with left him with enough freedom to talk openly and he was using that freedom to break Joe’s radio silence order. “I thought the whole system was going down.”

Joe ground his teeth. He’d thought that he was working with professionals. “As long as they aren’t locked what does it matter? No back seat heisting! Ron’s got his job, you’ve got yours. If you’re far enough away from the guard to chat you aren’t keeping a close enough eye on him to warn us if he’s coming back - just do _your_ job. Ron, are we good?”

Ron’s answer was quick and to the point. “Go.” Ron understood what ‘essential communication only’ meant.

Joe walked up to fence, playing it cool as long as there was a risk of being viewed from the street, the pulled himself over quickly, careful to let his sleeve catch on the spikes and risk leaving traces behind, before making his way across the courtyard to his chosen entrance.

It had rained earlier and the stone of the steps still felt damp beneath his knees as Joe knelt and pulled his picks out of his jacket to work on the lock. Once nerves might have slowed him or made his fingers shake, but he was experienced enough by then that the racing of his heart wasn’t enough to make him waver and a simple lock like that, a mechanism leftover from decades ago now only used as a back-up to the complex systems he’d had Ron remove from his path, was the work of seconds.

Joe pushed the door open and sure enough there was no hint of an alarm. Nothing to worry about. He didn’t hesitate to jog through the corridor, the place was shut down and empty so there was no need to worry about noise or being inconspicuous. The hall was lit only by the glow of the emergency exit lights and to some perhaps the echo of footsteps against the dark-panelled walls and high ceilings might have been spooky but for Joe it was a comforting reminder of how close he was to victory.

He spotted the doors that lead from the entryway and ticket booths to the foyer of the gallery, the only real challenge of his end of the heist. He knew he could pick them, but picking them fast enough was going to be a test of his skills. It had taken him a two and a half minutes to get here from the perimeter, with no locks to pick he could probably make his exit in under two, which left him just under three to get into the foyer and grab the statues.

He was just moving towards them when Webster’s voice cut into the comms, breaking the rules again. “I hear sirens.”

Joe rolled his eyes. He had thought Web above the sort of amateur twitchiness but apparently not. And to think that it had been Webster who’d been so insistent on quiet on the comms at the start of the night.

“Probably some cop on the end of his shift rushing to get back to his precinct so he can go the fuck home already,” Joe said, pulling his picks from his sleeve. “Now keep quiet, I need to focus.”

He took a deep breath and set to work, trying to focus on the lock and not the timings in his head but he could feel them pressing down on him all the same.

Thirty seconds, then a minute, he was close to cracking it but not close enough. The ten minutes Joe had ordered Webster to keep the guard away for were up, wild goose chase Webster had talked him guard into would be finished by now and Webster would be making his getaway while Ron put the control room back in order so the guard wouldn’t notice the intrusion, meaning the security features were on the verge of starting to reactivate.

Joe took a deep breath. Panic was the enemy of success.

One minute thirty and he heard the click of the lock but when he turned the handle it didn’t move.

Fuck.

Calm. He needed to stay calm. It took two minutes for the systems to reboot and he still had time. He jiggled the handle, leaning his body up against the door, and yes! It turned. There was no unexpected barrier here, just a door that was old and stiff and warped with time.

He was in.

It was only the first room of the gallery but that didn’t matter, it was further than any thief before him had achieved.

Right by the door were his chosen prizes. A set of gold-plated bronze statues —not that valuable, not that famous, not that easy to move, but instantly recognisable as a set from the gallery— he took two steps towards them and then froze.

“Ron?” he said. “Are you still in the security room?” Perhaps he’d missed a signal when he was focused on the door. “Ron?”

Nothing.

The little light that indicated if the pressure seals were active on the plexi-glass cases around the statues glowed a sickly defiant green.

Ron should have deactivated them, that was the most important part of his assignment, and he should have signalled Joe if he’d had even a hint of trouble getting them open.

Had something happened?

The comms hadn’t picked up any hint of a ruckus, but perhaps Webster had slipped up and the guard had got back faster than expected. Perhaps Joe had slipped up and there was more security, other guards he’d failed to account for, who’d interrupted Ron’s work.

“Ron?” he said, and he knew that panic was the enemy but he couldn’t keep the waver out of his voice. “Ron, what’s your status?”

“It’s over Liebgott.”

Ron’s voice was cold, giving nothing away, but Joe was backing towards the door already. Something had gone badly wrong.

“Can you speak freely?” he said quickly. If Ron had been caught then it was Joe’s responsibility to at least look at the options for getting him loose, even if the odds were slim. “What’s happened?”

“The building is surrounded and all exits are secured,” Ron said. “There’s no way out, the cops know everything you had planned for tonight.”

“How?” Joe had kept everything between the three of them, none of the people he’d reached out to in recruiting his crew had been given enough information about the job that they could sabotage it and Joe was sure he’d made no missteps with the security. Could Webster have blabbed to the mystery friend he’d been visiting? Could their communications have been tapped into or overheard?

“It’s been a long time since we last worked together,” Ron said, and Joe’s stomach flipped in dread. “I’ve been an F.B.I consultant since 2013.”

He froze. What the actual fuck?

“You… You’re…” It made no sense. Maybe some amateur could end up caught and decide to switch sides to save their own neck, but somebody of Ron’s calibre? There was no reason. “You were the best thief in the world, and now you’re working for them? What happened?”

There was a pause, and for a moment Ron’s voice softened, “I found something worth giving it all up for.” A moment later, the indifferent tone was back. “Listen, Joe, it’s over. Your plan would never have worked. The only reason you got this far was because Chicago PD were willing to back off in order to make sure you got far enough to make this a clear case.”

To give him enough rope to hang himself.

“Bullshit!” he snapped, the heist had been flawless. If the cops had anything at all on him was only because Ron was a traitor.

“You had a good run, but nobody gets away with it forever,” Ron continued. “You’re surrounded and there’s an APB out on your distraction, they’ve probably picked him up and got him talking already.”

Joe ignored him, stuck on his previous words. “Something worth giving it up for? You were the best! Whatever you wanted you could have just taken!”

“Some things you can’t steal.”

“What?” he snapped, “What could the feds possibly give you to make sinking to this worthwhile? Is this some Disney bullshit about finding a purpose, some sense of validation of getting a pat on the head from the government?” There was nothing. Nothing in the world that made sense. Whatever it was, it had ruined Ron. “Or just the chance to screw over people who trusted you?”

They’d once been partners, professionally and otherwise, and Joe had still thought them friends. But clearly that wasn’t enough to keep Ron from doing this.

“You made your own choices, Liebgott,” Ron said, and something in his voice had shifted so that he even sounded like a cop. “The building is surrounded, and there are officers making their way to you now. Just put your hands in the air and don’t make this any worse than it has to be.”

Joe swallowed.

He’d done his fair share of nights in holding cells, endured his forty-eight hours and walked out without a charge because he knew better than to leave evidence, even did a three month stint in medium security when he was still learning the ropes. This was different. If he was caught now he wouldn’t be free for a very long time. He was red-handed inside the museum and Speirs could testify to the fact that Joe had been both the planner and the instigator. It’d be five to ten years if he got very lucky, a lot longer if they managed to use this to tie past crimes to him.

Ron knew every step of Joe’s strategy, has definitely cut off every potential exit and back-up plan, hell Joe had shared most of them with him when they’d talked through the job, Joe was good but how the hell could he out-manoeuvre the man who taught him almost all of his tricks?

All _his_ tricks.

What had Speirs said? ‘They’ll pick up your distraction soon enough’. Ron had never really talked to Web except for a few brief words about the job and Joe hadn’t thought to explain Webster’s credentials, had assumed the fact he’d picked Web to work with would speak for itself. But Speirs thought that Webster was just a small time grifter, somebody Joe had pulled in to get himself and Speirs through the door, who’d panic at the sound of sirens and who could be outsmarted by some local doughnut-eater. Speirs didn’t even think Webster was still in the game, had never really considered him a player, let alone that he could still have moves to make.

Fuck, Joe didn’t know if Web was either. There was every chance that Webster had run as soon as his anxieties were proved right. He’d already been itching to leave and Joe had been the one to bring Speirs in, had attested to his trustworthiness, there was no reason for Webster to put his own escape on the line to save Joe from his own mistake.

He was also the only hope Joe had.

If Webster still had his ear-piece in then Joe could talk to him, but anything he said Speirs would hear too, so that put asking for help directly off the table, but maybe Webster could take a hint.

Time for a defeated bad-guy monologue. Speirs ought to know Joe well enough to know that wasn’t his style, but clearly he wasn’t the friend Joe had thought he was.

“You won’t hold me for long,” he said. “I’ve still got favours owed to me. There was a job in Rome a few guys owe me for, Skinny would still come through for me and you remember how good he is with computers — good luck convicting me when all your evidence has been erased. There was a whole ridiculous shit-show in Boston last year—” It was a risk. There was a not insignificant possibility that Webster would just be annoyed by Joe bringing up Boston again, especially when he’d made it perfectly clear that he didn’t think he owed Joe anything for that. “And back in spring I helped a guy out with a shitty boyfriend situation, not sure how much use that favour would be but maybe he could help me out with bail money, he knows I’d pay him back with interest.” As if there was a judge in the country that would be stupid enough to allow Joe bail — he’d be in a non-extradition country to regroup before the ink was dry on the paperwork.

But that was all the persuasion he had. A debt he wasn’t sure Webster felt he owed and a vague bribe. It was all he had to offer at all, he couldn’t even suggest any escape route or strategy without Speirs hearing.

He pulled the ear-piece out, tossed it on the ground and crushed it beneath his boot. Web would find a way to help or he wouldn’t and Joe didn’t want to hear another word from Speirs. The he raised his hands in the air, and when half a dozen cops crashed into the room he didn’t resist.

Getting arrested wasn’t ideal, but if there was no way out for him then there was no point making this worse than it had to be.

He got his Miranda rights read to him, but he also got a rough frisking and the cuffs cinched way tighter than was comfortable or necessary, and then a cop was on either side of him hustling him towards the door, his lack of resistance apparently not enough to keep them from shoving him around.

There were several squad cars and a dozen more cops milling around the parking lot when they got outside, like they weren’t quite sure what to do now that he was coming quietly, and it was almost flattering that Speirs had presented Joe as the sort of threat that would require this level of response. But it also completely ruled out making a break for it, the guys who’d escorted him from the building pushed Joe into the hands of another cop, but he wouldn’t get ten yards if he tried to run in this crowd.

He was pushed up against the side of a cop-car and given another pat down that had him rolling his eyes at the repetition, maybe this guy didn’t trust his colleagues competence or maybe Joe had just been arrested by morons who didn’t bother to communicate with each other. He was leaning towards the morons theory as he rested his head against the side of the car, noting that this cop also failed to find his back-up picks in the pat down, not that they were much use to him without a serious game-changer.

All this fuss and so many people to capture him and now they had him Joe was feeling a little under-appreciated. If he had to be caught then the least it ought to be was a big deal. These guys didn’t bring down guys like him, they gave parking tickets and littering fines, but Speirs had decided to throw his lot in with them anyway. It was absurd. Joe heard footsteps approaching and almost hoped it was some other cop coming to butt his nose in and crow about their victory because at least it meant they thought he was a force to be reckoned with.

Then he looked up and it was a miracle that Joe didn’t give the game away by letting his jaw drop.

The bland suit, the badge, the friendly smile as he reached out and shook the goddamn hand of the officer arresting Joe — this play again? Really?

“Nice work. David Hawthorne, fraud,” Webster introduced himself to the cop holding onto Joe, then waved in Joe’s direction. “Mind if I have a few words before you take him in? He might have information about where his accomplice is heading that’ll let us cut him off before he gets out of the city and triples everybody’s paperwork.”

Joe bristled instinctively. Like he’d ever instantly rat out a crew. The cop was laughing though, shoving Joe in Webster’s direction. So much for fucking chain of custody.

“Sure thing,” he said. “Ask him whatever you need, I’m going to go check in with the boss, see how much longer this thing is gonna take, I’ve been on since fuckin’ noon, can you believe it?”

Webster grabbed Joe, one hand on the cuffs and another pushing Joe’s shoulders, a perfect imitation of the way the real cops had handled him. “Great, I’m just gonna take him somewhere we can talk away from all this racket.”

“It’s quieter on the south side of the building,” the cop offered, and Joe wondered if he was naive to the possibility that Webster wanted quiet to work a suspect over, or just complicit. “I’ll send a car around for him in a few minutes.”

Webster tugged Joe across the parking lot towards the south exit. He was rough enough with him that Joe nearly tripped a few times, but that wouldn’t raise the eyebrow of anybody who’d been a cop for more than five minutes. It took several long moments of waiting for somebody to point or to shout ‘hey you!’ but finally they rounded the corner of the building and were out of sight.

“Picks,” Joe said quickly. Then, unsure if Webster carried his own set, added, “In my left sock.”

Webster dropped down, fishing the picks out with ease, but when he set to work on the cuffs he was so slow that Joe began to think he could have done it faster himself even with the disadvantage of his hands being cuffed behind his back. Was it nerves or was Webster really so bad at something that was one of the essential skills of their line of work? Either way the delay was unacceptable when at any moment somebody could raise the alarm and start the cops looking for them again.

He resisted the urge to hiss at Web to hurry up, not when Webster had come back for him despite the fact it wasn’t the smart choice, though he couldn’t resist cursing under his breath as he felt Webster fumbling yet again.

Just when he thought he might go mad from waiting he finally heard Webster’s quiet, triumphant whisper of, “There!” and felt the cuffs loosen enough that he could pull his wrists free. He shook his arms out, rubbing the circulation back into his wrists as Webster climbed back to his feet.

“Holy shit,” he muttered as he started walking, desperate to put a little more distance between himself and so many cops. “I can’t believe that just worked. You just walked up to them and they didn’t even question it…”

“You fell for it in Boston, didn’t you?” Webster said, though he sounded too smug to be convincingly dismissive of what he’d achieved. “Unless you think that they’re smarter than you?”

Joe scoffed. “I wasn’t actively looking for you in Boston. What if they’d recognised you?” he said. Surely Speirs had included a description of both Joe and Webster in his betrayal.

“Who’s looking for a fleeing criminal in the face of a guy who’s just walked right up to them?” Webster said. He had a point. Joe tended to roll his eyes when he was watching a movie and the characters turned to a plan that ‘just might be nuts enough to work’ but it was true that nobody anticipated crazy reckless moves. Although in Webster’s case Joe suspected he might have made his choice based more on arrogance than insanity.

“You couldn’t have known he’d just hand me over like that though.”

“Paid overtime now or paperwork later?” Webster shrugged. “You hardly ever _know_ with people, it’s just about finding odds that you’re willing to play with.”

“You had the badge with you,” Joe realised. “You had a backup escape plan all along?” If the job hadn’t gone so badly it would have annoyed him, it shouldn’t have been necessary, but it’s hard to feel insulted by the lack of confidence when his misplaced trust had nearly gotten them both arrested.

“I told you, there was something… off about Speirs,” Webster said. “I trusted my instincts.”

Right. Joe was still pretty sure that Webster’s mistrust had stemmed from a pettier source, if he’d really thought Speirs was a traitor he’d have pulled out of the job completely, but if Webster’s slighted ego kept him out of a cell then Webster could be a persnickety as he liked about it.

Still, Speirs betrayal wasn’t a thought Joe wanted to dwell on yet. He’d never misjudged someone so badly before. “Whatever,” Joe said. “It’s done.”

“We’re not in the clear yet,” Webster pointed out, poking a firm hole in the bubble of elation filling Joe’s chest at that ridiculous escape. “In a few minutes somebody is going to notice that you’re gone, and that I’m not a cop. We need to run.”

Joe bit his lip. He’d planned to clear out fast and leave a search behind them but he’d counted on a little more breathing room than this.

“No.”

Webster stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“No. That’s what they’re expecting. For us to flee. If they’ve managed to get this much manpower to stop the heist they’ll probably be able to get more to catch us. There’ll be roadblocks on every route out the city, there’s no way out.” Speirs wouldn’t allow then to slip through his fingers when he’d come so close to having them.

“So we’re screwed and I should have just let them take you into custody and saved myself the extra trouble,” Webster huffed.

Joe kicked him in the shin. It was a little immature but he felt he’d earned a pass with the way the night had gone. “Don’t be a drama queen,” he said. “We just need to lay low a while. They don’t have the money to keep up a manhunt for long, they’re on a budget and neither of us is a danger to the public.” Or at least he wasn’t and he assumed the same could be said for Webster who, brief ventures into arson aside, didn’t really seem aggressive.

“You think we can just ride this out till they stop caring about us?” Webster said dubiously.

Joe shrugged. It wouldn’t be so hard. He hadn’t even taken the damn statues, nobody was going to prioritise apprehending the perpetrators of a failed non-violent crime. “Sure. Soon enough it’ll be like this never happened.” They were three blocks from the museum now, it was time to split up and take cover. “Find a motel, catch up on TV and sleep for a week or two, then hop on a bus somewhere and this becomes just another close call.”

He knew he should thank Webster, for coming for him back and for not saying a word about the fact that Joe had nearly gotten them both arrested by trusting the wrong guy, but the words stuck in his throat. It was just too much to acknowledge and he wasn’t sure he could do it without calling Webster crazy, because that’s what it was.

It didn’t matter because Webster spoke before he could.

“I… don’t have enough cash for a motel, not for more than a night or two.” Webster said. “And the Hawthorne I.D was the only spare fake I brought with me and they know that now.”

Joe sighed.

Two of them going to the same motel would be far more likely to get them recognised than splitting up would be. It would be stupid and risky to stay together. But Webster had made a reckless move for his sake and returning that by leaving him hanging in the wind when the reason he had no cover was because he’d blown it walking right up to the cops and literally dragging Joe out from under their noses… well, maybe Joe had learned tonight that there was one fewer honourable crooks in his life than he’d thought, but he didn’t have to add himself to the list.

“Then crash with me,” he said. “And since we’ve got some time, you’re gonna learn how to get cuffs off properly, because back there was just embarrassing.”

Webster laughed, but he’d learn how serious Joe was about those lessons soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
> _”Full payment before the job? Risky...”  
>  "You aren't going to double cross me, because you're too curious about what I'm doing.”_


	6. Episode 6 - The Decoy

**San Diego, California - March 2017**

 

Joe enjoyed sex, but never slept well in other people's bedrooms. It was shitty to skip out on a sleeping one-night stand without a goodbye, but at the same time he figured it was pretty impolite of the woman he'd gone home with to fall asleep without bothering to ask if he wanted to stay or go. Sure, there was nothing stopping him from leaving, but he didn't know where she kept her keys and going out through a window and leaving it swinging wide open after him like an open invite to any passing burglar who might want to grab her purse and her jewellery felt like a dick move.

So, he was trapped.

There were far worse places to be trapped than in a king-sized bed with an attractive woman, but that didn't keep him from feeling antsy. Letting down his guard to sleep in an unfamiliar place with a stranger and unknown and likely inadequate security was hard enough, but he'd only just wrapped up a job in Dubai and his body clock hadn't yet realised that he wasn't of Gulf time anymore.

He was trying not to fidget too much, he didn't want to wake his companion —Alice? Alex? the club had been loud and she hadn't seemed to mind that he only called her baby— but there was only so much time he could spend staring around a darkened bedroom without getting bored.

It was such a relief when his phone buzzed with an incoming message, he’d have welcomed any distraction by the point. He reached over to grab it from the nightstand, careful not to wake the woman sleeping next to him, and glanced at the screen.

A picture message, no text to fill the notification, and it was from Webster.

Curious.

They'd talked a few times since the mess in Chicago, first just because Joe had needed somebody in the known to vent his frustrations about Speirs' betrayal to, and then he’d kept up the correspondence for the enjoyment of having somebody to shoot the shit with without having to worry about accidentally giving away too much about his work, unlike the woman sleeping next to him who had been told a pack of lies about him consulting for an oil firm.

Joe swiped the screen and opened the message. It took a few seconds for him to realise what he was seeing and he zoomed in closer on the image Webster had just sent him.

Joe was no jeweller but he could recognise a legendary piece when he saw one. That was The Sancy Diamond, or at least a good enough fake to be passed off in a photo. The diamond had been missing since the French Revolution, then turned up on the black-market after the first world war and transferred from illicit collection to illicit collection ever since.

The stories were rife. It had never been bought or sold since it’s rediscovery, only stolen or occasionally traded, and it had never passed back into legitimate hands.

And Webster had it… or wanted to pretend he did. Either way, this was something Joe wanted to know more about.

He texted back.

 

**_YOU stole that_** **_(Eyes ) (Eyes )(Eyes ) _ **

 

Webster's reply was near instantaneous. _It's sitting in front of me right now._

 

Joe rolled his eyes. **_and u just felt like showing off????_**

 

_You want it? Because I'm willing to trade._

 

Well, that wasn't suspicious at all. Still, he couldn't deny his curiosity. **_price?_**

 

_A few hours of your time._

 

Joe stared down at his phone. What the hell was Webster up to? The Sancy diamond was one hell of a way to get Joe's attention. Still, Joe couldn't think of many reasons Webster would offer up a prize like that and whatever he wanted Joe to do in the few hours he was asking for would have to be pretty extreme to justify the trade.

 

**_what's the catch_ **

 

_The job is simple. But it has to be in L.A tomorrow night._

 

Joe frowned. The diamond was a big pay-out for a simple job, but he was more curious about what had Webster in such a rush.

 

**_woah cutting it close_ **

**_i thought you were all about the planning and the long con pretty boy_ **

 

It was several minutes before Webster responded.

 

_I had a plan, but we're a man down and it's too late to change the timetable. I need someone reliable to fill in._

 

Ah, flattery. It wasn't often Joe got called reliable. Not because he was a flake, his plans were solid and if he did make a promise he kept it, but he didn't tend to let people get close enough that they'd start to think of him as somebody to be relied upon. Apparently, Webster thought differently. Still, he wasn’t going to be that easily distracted from the important details.

 

**_wots the job_ **

 

Webster's reply was succinct

 

_Not important. All you need to know is where and when I need you to be a distraction. It's easy work and a fair trade_

 

Then, a few seconds later: _Are you in or not?_

 

Shit. Missing out a full stop and not calling Joe on putting the effort into making a deliberate misspelling despite his auto-correct? Webster really must be desperate. Still, only a rookie would take a job that paid so well for so little work, especially with so few details. It sounded like a textbook set up and he was nobody's fall guy — sure, Webster didn’t strike Joe as likely to screw him over but then, neither had Speirs. Then his phone vibrated again.

 

_Please._

 

Everything Joe knew about Webster said his pride wouldn't allow him to beg unless he truly was in dire straits, and maybe not even then. And he had come back for Joe in Chicago when he could have cut and run. Much as Joe might wish otherwise, sharing a motel room hardly covered that debt, particularly not when he could hardly deny that spending a week in bed with Web had made hiding out a far more enjoyable pastime than when he holed-up on his own with nothing but shitty reality tv to occupy him.

Joe sighed, and flipped out of his messages and into Skyscanner. L.A before nightfall wouldn't be too hard, even accounting for the fact he'd need two flights -- one into New York under one fake ID and another back to California on a different one. It would turn a trip that should be a short drive into one that would last all day and mean the stress of getting through airport security but it had long been Joe’s rule to conceal where he was coming from — especially when that place was close to home.

Five minutes later Joe sent Webster his inbound flight details.

Taking the job might be madness but you couldn't succeed in their line of business without being willing to do some crazy shit.

 

*

 

He landed at LAX just after four-thirty and Webster was waiting for him in arrivals.

California looked good on him. He was sun-kissed and dressed in more comfortable looking clothing than Joe had ever seen him, a V-necked t-shirt that exposed his collarbones and a hint of chest hair, jeans that looked sun-bleached and salt-water stained, sunglasses perched atop his dark curls. He leaned casually up against the wall, waving as Joe walked over.

“Am I gonna be in town long enough to need bags?” Joe asked. Webster had implied this was a one-night thing.

“Need? No, but some people bring stuff anyway,” Webster replied. “I've got a car waiting outside.”

“You know I didn’t ask for this whole airport pickup thing,” he said. Even if Web had nothing planned that day he still couldn’t have enjoyed dealing with L.A traffic. “You could have just given me a meeting place and let me take a cab.”

“It’s a professional courtesy,” Webster said, holding out a hand. “You know it's good you have you here.” Joe raised his eyebrows, this wasn't a board meeting and he didn't need to test the strength of Webster's grip, but Webster just left his hand hanging there until eventually Joe caved and shook it.

As soon as he did so he realised the reasons behind the gesture, not a greeting but an opportunity to slip something into Joe's hand.

Something, by the feel of it, being the Sancy diamond.

A surprise hand off in the middle of a busy airport… fuck, but sometimes he didn’t know if Webster’s arrogance was awe-inspiring or embarrassing.

“Full payment before the job?” Far be it from Joe to criticise other people's business practises when they benefit him, but that was beyond amateur.

“Well, I can’t exactly split it and give you half now and the rest when the job is done,” Webster pointed out. “Anyway, I won't have time to get it to you later.”

“Risky though,” Joe couldn’t help reminding him.

“C’mon, this way,” Webster said, moving towards the doors. “And you aren't going to double cross me, because you're too curious about what I'm doing.”

“You sure about that?” Joe said, but it was weak. He was curious and even if he wasn’t he’d had too good of a time with Webster at previous meetings to make an enemy of him over something as petty as this. From the way Webster looked him up and down, blatantly checking him out, Webster knew this too. Joe had kind of been hoping that there might be a chance to have a good time tonight, but if Webster doesn't think they were going to be seeing each other later then Joe supposes that's off the cards. Unless they get the shop talk over with fast enough to fit in a noon-er. Or multi-tasked. “Whatever, what exactly is it I'm getting paid for here?”

“It's straightforward enough,” Webster said. “Well, your part is anyway. We just need a little cover.”

“Cover?” Joe raised his eyebrows. “What sort of cover? Because I’m pretty sure my being a known criminal limits my effectiveness as an alibi.”

Webster laughed. “Not an alibi, just... somebody to make some noise. Some light trouble in the area that will draw attention away from us.”

“Who is us?” Joe asked, suspiciously. “You're working with a team?” Unknown elements were never great. Even known ones could be a problem. After the shit-show in Chicago he didn’t want anything to do with working with a crew that might contain a rat.

“Not other thieves,” Webster said. “I did all the planning but this job needs manpower and a few specialists. I've worked with all of them before, they're committed.”

That didn’t exactly erase Joes concerns but they'd reached Webster's car, a slick looking soft-top Tesla with a discrete rental sticker on the windshield, and Joe didn't wait for permission to settle inside, grimacing at the feel of the sun-warmed leather seats.

And Webster stayed cagey about the specifics of the job as they inched through the late afternoon L.A traffic. He was quite happy to explain what he wanted from Joe —go into the neighbourhood Webster mentioned and rob a jewellery store, maybe take a few local cars for a joyride, even graffiti a few government buildings if he was feeling artistic— the details didn’t matter, Joe just had to propagate enough low-level chaos in the vicinity of what Webster had planned that any calls that came in related to his target would be assumed to simply be one of Joe’s disturbances. And once he’d stirred up some heat and then Joe should lead the cops on a merry chase through tinsel-town while they assumed he was responsible for whatever Webster was pulling and therefore allow his people a clean getaway.

“That sounds a lot like a fall guy,” Joe could help but point out.

“Only if you get caught,” Webster said. “Anyway, if they did catch you it would be obvious that you weren't connected to my job. The whole reason we need this decoy is because we can't move quickly or discreetly.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. What the hell was Web stealing? A big sculpture was the only thing Joe could think of which would present those sorts of difficulties, but nothing sprung to mind in central L.A that would be on that hard to move scale and interesting or valuable enough to steal. When pressed, however, Webster just claimed that it was better that he didn't know. Something about plausible deny-ability and not biasing the direction of the string of petty crimes Joe would be committing for him.

Still, “This sounds like something you could pay some local kids to do for a hundred bucks apiece,” Joe pointed out.

“I want this done perfectly,” Webster replied. “Professionally, not by some kids who are more likely to just take the money and go.”

There Webster went again, with his ridiculous certainty that Joe wouldn’t just bail on him now that he had the diamond in his pocket. Anyway, there were smaller time crooks who wouldn’t risk their reputation by taking the payment and not seeing things through but would do the job cheaply.

“Still, seems like a waste of my talents. If whatever you’re taking is so important why not have me help you with the main job and leave one of your amateur friends in charge of the distraction.

Webster shook his head. “No, the plan stays as it is. You may be flexible but the others aren’t and this job requires using every asset correctly.”

Joe opened his mouth.

“And if your next sentence involves repeating the word asset with unnecessary emphasis on the ass part I will make sure you regret it.”

Joe closed his mouth.

When they got towards the centre of the city, Webster pulled into a parking space on the side of a mini-mall. “You can get out here.”

Joe stared at him. “What, you're just kicking me out?”

“It’s only short walk from here to where I need you,” Webster said. “And there’s plenty of tourist stuff around here. Have a little fun.”

“Seriously?”

Webster nodded. “Trust me. I have to go get things into place, you aren’t needed for that and you won’t enjoy it.”

“Okay, okay,” Joe said, unclasping his seatbelt. He looked Webster over one last time, regretting the fact this trip was apparently going to be strictly business.

And perhaps Webster caught the glance because he rolled his eyes and said, “What, were you expecting me to greet you with a blow job right here in the car?”

No, Joe’s line of thinking had been leading towards getting a hotel room, what with the fact they were in full view of the street and getting arrested on public indecency charges would be an ignoble end to his career, but the thought of Webster’s mouth was still tempting.

“What, I can’t hope for a more enthusiastic welcome after hauling my ass all the way to L.A on such short notice?”

Webster sucked his lower lip thoughtfully, which really wasn’t fair given what they were talking about. “What can I say? I’m a busy guy and I’d hate to have to rush with you. “Rain check?”

Joe grinned. “Exhibitionism and everything?”

“Oh, get out of my car,” Webster scoffed, shoving at Joe’s shoulder. “If you have any questions about the job, you can text. I’ll keep you updated, but I need to make sure all of the others are in place and I'm pretty sure you can knock over an ATM without me walking you through it, whereas these guys aren't professionals and they actually need me around.”

That was fair, although Joe could probably have done without knowing that the people Webster wanted working with him directly were amateurs while it was Joe who'd been left to do the kids’ stuff. “When should I start?”

“We'll make our first move about 9pm,” Webster said. “And it'll take us a few hours to get done.”

“Start at eight?” Joe suggested. “That'll give me some time to get a ruckus going before you do whatever shit your planning, but it's late enough to let drag things out for a few hours before things get too hot.”

Webster nodded, brow furrowing slightly. “Like I said, you've got my number in case anything goes wrong but...”

“It won’t,” Joe said. Not on his end. He didn’t know what kind of amateurs Webster was working with, but he was a consummate professional.

Webster smiled and for a moment Joe’s mind was filled with thoughts of kissing him, but then he shook his head and slipped a hand into his pocket to feel the diamond again, reminding himself that was the main reason why he’d come. He was here to do a job, not because he’d read Webster’s please and wanted to know what the word would sound like coming from his mouth.

 

*

 

It was nostalgic, almost. He felt ridiculously young, strolling down a shopping street eyeing up parked cars and storefronts with mischief in mind. Joe so rarely indulged in whims these days, his eye always on complex challenges that required weeks or months of preparation, and he enjoyed the work he did but there could be fun in relaxing and going after an easy mark.

Webster wanted him to target a tourist area and the opportunities were as bountiful as the security was lax, the hardest part would be keeping his crimes sloppy enough that they'd attract the attention Webster wanted.

He wanted expensive, because expensive means somebody who can afford to be robbed and because he fully intended on making a getaway with the products of the evenings spree (Webster may have paid with the diamond but that was no reason not to maximise the benefits) but not too expensive because he didn’t want to draw too much heat before he’d had time to get going. He had time yet before he was supposed to begin, but Joe needed to have his targets in order if he wanted to do this well.

First things first, transport. There was a parking lot right off the street, five stories of choice and not even a proper barrier to restrict access. Joe made his way over. He could break into a car, but it was a bit conspicuous for an opening move. Anyway, that meant having to make a choice and all of the mid-range sedans made for an overwhelmingly bland selection — if he had to drive one of those he wanted to be able to make some claim of being forced into it by circumstances.

So, he idled over by the exit and waited for somebody to leave.

It barely took two minutes for a guy in a suit to walk close enough by that Joe could brush up against him and dip into his pocket. The man didn’t even acknowledge the collision, totally oblivious to the fast his keys were now in Joe's hand. Honestly, it was so easy it almost seemed strange for Joe to remember when he'd first started out, the fuss he'd made of accidentally colliding with people and making a huge show of apologising to distract them from his wandering hands. He couldn't remember the last time he'd picked a pocket just for the hell of it.

Joe strolled through the parking lot pressing the clicker and waiting for a response, getting all the way up to the third floor before the lights flashed on a silver Lexus with Arizona plates and a nasty scuff on the driver's side door.

It would do.

He let himself in and settled in the driver’s seat, leaning across the stick to rummage through the glove compartment. A half-drunk water bottle, some slightly squashed mints, way too many receipts --had this guy ever heard of a trashcan or a filing system? -- and the ugliest pair of sunglasses that Joe had seen in a long time. Nothing worth keeping and nothing sentimental he'd have to take out before he burnt it to clear out any DNA at the end of the night. That would make things easier.

For the next half hour, he cruised the neighbourhood, making notes of stoplight and traffic patterns and likely targets. The whole place was just overpriced junk marketed at tourists and he couldn't figure out what Webster even wanted from it, even if Joe assumed he must be operating just outside the limits of the area he'd asked Joe to sow chaos in otherwise he'd have had to warn Joe away from whatever the real target of the night was.

There was a jewellery store right on the south side of the neighbourhood that he picked out as the ideal starting point, small enough not to have much security but big enough that it would be covered by insurance -- he'd never worried about that sort of thing back he busted up stores on the regular, but back then he'd been a kid with no thought for wide reaching consequences. Now he looked at a place like that and caught himself thinking about the people that owned it, not some big corporation that saw the place as an entry in a ledger but actual people whose lives might be impacted by what he was doing. There was no fun in fucking over the little people, they didn't have anything worth taking or enough security to make it worth a try just for the challenge. So, he'd make his move big and flashy and undeniable, he'd picked up enough about insurance over the years that he knew what would result in a pay-out for the shop owners, shifting the cost back onto people he didn't mind fucking with.

As soon as the street started to clear out he stuck. Loud and sloppy, because that was how Webster wanted it, but fast and hard too because, no matter what, Joe was first and fore-mostly good at what he did.

Three minutes.

It would have taken him five times that back when he was doing this sort of thing on the regular, panicking over making sure he got the best stuff and didn't show up on any security, but now he knew how to keep his head down and his mouth shut, and while, he still prioritised quality over quantity in his usual dealings, for this it was simply a matter of grabbing as much as he could carry and clearing the scene.

The pounding of his heart was unexpected, but he found himself laughing as he jumped back into the car, dumping out fistfuls of tacky necklaces on the passenger seat.

Perhaps a trivial little workout would be good for him after all.

He drove to exactly the limit as he pulled away, no need to draw attention but he didn’t want to be hanging around the scene of the crime either, anyway he’d spotted a chocolate shop a few blocks away as he’d been driving over and while it wasn’t exactly a high-value target it fit the bill for disruption and all the travel and sudden plans had meant that he hadn’t eaten since his shitty airport breakfast.

Twenty minutes later he was driving away with a trunk full of 72% cocoa Belgian chocolate, a haul the definitely rated in his top 20 list of crimes. The night might even edge towards top ten if he could find a final getaway car that was cool and had enough space that he can take his spoils away with him.

As fast and easy as they seemed while they were happening, two break ins within a few blocks would definitely attract attention. Joe had a few more targets in mind, but he needed to take it steady, both to make sure the chaos lasted as long as Webster had paid for and because doing too much too fast would draw a bigger police presence and he might be skilled but Joe wasn’t immune to bad luck.

He still wasn’t entirely sure what Webster was going for by having Joe wreak havoc, but he supposed that if the cops were dealing with Joe’s chaos spree then they’d be spread thinly enough that Web could slip through the gaps.

Joe was just cruising down the main street when he saw it, and almost kicked himself for missing it earlier.

A building site next to a bank.

God. They might as well have written him an invitation.

Of course, there was no way he could pull off the getaway within the stipulations of his deal with Webster and without planning, but as an opportunity to cause a little disruption and teach a quick lesson in why letting heavy machinery be stored unsecured right next door to a bank was a dumb-ass idea? Well that was too good for Joe to resist.

He pulled the Lexus into a side-street a few blocks away where he could come back to it -he wasn’t losing that chocolate- and then made his way over to the building site.

It was almost funny, just how poorly secured it was. The main gate was held closed by a hardware store padlock, the sort that broke as easily as it could be picked, and the main building was a shabby prefabricated hut, the materials so cheap that the door swung open after Joe gave it a single solid kick.

And the machinery keys weren’t even being kept in a locked box.

At this point Joe was practically performing a public service by bringing attention to just how easily a criminal could take advantage of their setup.

He’d never actually driven a digger before, but he knew his way around vehicles in general and he’d always had a knack for those arcade claw machines so it wasn’t hard to figure out. His inner six-year-old was cackling with delight as he manoeuvred the digger off-site and into the street. Joe would never had admitted it himself, and there was nobody nearby to witness is, but he might have indulged in a little maniacal laughter aloud in the wondrous moment that the diggers claw sank into the wall and came away with the entire ATM in its clutches.

Then he jumped down from the digger’s cab and left it there. Cash had never brought him any joy beyond the comfort of knowing he had enough of it to get by, he’d made his point and it was time to get back to the plan and his car full of real treasures. Breaking into a few shops might get overlooked, but nobody was going to fail to notice the scene he’d created.

It was buzzing under his skin, an impulsiveness that he’d mostly trained himself out of indulging while on jobs. He could do anything, hit a real bank, knock over a warehouse or two — but no, this might a job that let him indulge but it was still a job. He wasn’t used to working to such an open-ended goal though. Joe planned his crimes in meticulous detail, could spend days going over blueprints to ensure that every inch of security was accounted for, ever second of his crime, was planned out to its maximum potential. He was too used to trying to make every job the perfect crime to keep holding off the need to know more.

In search of inspiration he pulled out his phone and called Webster. They’d agreed to check-ins and boredom seemed as good a reason as any since the night was going smoothly.

The phone rang and rang, long enough that Joe started to tense up, wondering if he’d going to get an answer at all, before finally the call connected.

The first thing he heard was background noise, hard to make out over the phone but it sounded like water. Puzzling. There was nothing much along the oceanfront that sprung to mind as a notable target for a heist, narrowed down to the area Joe knows Webster is operating in there was even less.

“How’s it going?”

“Joe? Everything is going— No! Watch the glass! I—”

The crash was loud even on Joe’s end of the line and the call descended into muffled cussing for several long moments.

“Problem?” Joe said. He might not be directly involved but that was no reason to risk the possibility of being surprised by overspilling trouble if something went wrong on Webster’s end.

“Things are going about as well as can be expected,” Webster said, with a resigned sigh. “They’re doing well for amateurs.”

“Really?” Joe said dubiously. “Because it sounds like they’re smashing shit up.”

“Nothing that wasn’t going to be smashed by the end of the job anyway,” Webster reassured him. “I was just aiming to do that part last so we didn’t end up having to work around broken glass for the rest of the night.”

“I suppose it’ll jinx it if I get you to tell me what the fuck you’re doing?” Joe said.

“I mean, I’m not superstitious,” Webster said, and Joe’s hopes of satisfaction started to rise, but then Webster’s tone shifted and he finished with, “—oh dear god, what are they…? Joe, just keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll let you know when it’s time for the big finale.”

Thwarted, Joe heard a final murmur of “—you might be able to make that turn in a hatchback but not in a—” before Webster hung up.

Great. Now Joe was more curious than ever.

His best chance of satisfaction would come after the job was done though and so he put the mystery of what exactly Webster was trying to pull out of his mind and over the next hour hit: two more jewellers, a vape shop, a boutique full of fancy but hideous hats just to throw a curve-ball for anybody who might be questioning the motives behind this crime spree or trying to profile it’s perpetrator, and was finally interrupted but the buzz of his phone in his pocket.

Webster again, he didn’t even need to look at caller I.D.

Joe picked up the phone and didn’t get a chance to speak.

“It’s done!” Webster said, sounding breathless with exhilaration. “We’re headed out on different highways, even if they mobilised the entire state they’d never catch us all.”

Joe wasn’t all the interested in if the idiots Webster was working with were caught or not, only that the job was over.

“You’re completely in the clear?” There was so many ways a job that felt like it was finished could still go wrong, and he’d suffered through more than a few of them.

“No, we’ve still got to deal with everything at the other end,” Webster said matter-of-factly. “We’ll be driving most of the night and… well there’s a lot of stuff left to do before everything is wrapped up, but my part is over. There are other specialists for the redistribution.”

“Wait, redistribution?” Joe said. “You’re going to all this trouble, paying me way over the odds for one night of easy work, and you’re not ever keeping what you’re taking.” He’d already realised that Webster was more financially motivated than he was, but this seemed like a lot of trouble for him to go to for something that he was merely going to fence for cold hard cash.

“It wouldn’t be ethical,” Webster said, which hey, that was a second moral line of his Joe had uncovered, even if he didn’t know enough about the job to make sense of it. “Or practical.”

Because was he was moving was big, Joe was more certain than ever. Big enough to need a distraction because it couldn’t be moved discretely and big enough to be hard to store. He’d given up pushing though, if Webster was going to tell it was clear he’d do it in his own time. “I’ll wrap it up here then,” he said.

“Okay, do whatever you need to do to get away clear,” Webster said. “And Joe? Thanks.”

It wasn’t quite the please he’d been hoping to hear and over the phone wasn’t how he wanted to hear it, but Joe felt the warm curl of satisfaction in his belly anyway. He could have reminded Webster that he’d paid for it, but he had sort of done Webster a favour by agreeing to work for the diamond instead of just taking it once Webster had revealed he had it, so he had earned that gratitude in a way.

Though, gratitude was always best shown and appreciated in person.

“Don’t sweat it,” he said. “Maybe I’ll bring you in to do something for me some time—” that hadn’t worked out so well last time but, “—just you and me.

 

*

 

It took Joe fifteen minutes to switch cars to something that hadn’t been at the scene of any of his crimes and then another ten minutes to drive to a place to crash.

Cheap motels. He had a million-dollar apartment decorated with priceless art, but these were the places he spent more of his nights. Flickering neon lights and a reception desk attendant who didn’t even look at him as he checked in, business cards for an escort company right out in the open on the front desk, the number half scratched off of the tag on the key that was tossed in his directions.

The whole place was beautifully anonymous, not a security camera in sight, and it saved him the trouble of skipping town immediately when he was already messed up from the jet-lag of a few days ago, plus flying west-coast to east and back again all in one day to cover his location, and then staying out all night making mischief.

The adrenaline crash was hitting hard now the job was done and it was a fight to keep his eyes open as he made his way over to the room. At his sharpest he could have picked that lock faster than he got it open with the key in the depths of his exhaustion but Joe finally made it in.

He flopped down on top of the covers and remembered the last time he’d stayed in a cheap motel after a job with Webster. He was far too tired to do anything but kick off his jeans and sack out, but he still savoured the memories of the distraction Webster had offered up to take his mind off the stinging betrayal. Well, he hadn’t been much of a pleasant distraction at first, whining about the dingy state of the place —like it mattered that there was a blown-out bulb in the bathroom, the questionable stain on the wall— until Joe had pointed out that if it weren’t for his hospitality Webster would be out in the open evading the cops. He’s put his mouth to better use after that. Laying low wasn’t nearly so boring with company.

Sleep came quick, and filled with pleasant dreams.

 

*

 

Joe slept late the next morning, late enough that as soon as he glanced at the alarm clock he decided to just wait to go out for lunch instead of worrying about breakfast, but first he turned the TV on, flipping through the channels.

Whoever had been watching it last had been watching the weather, but like he gave a shit; next were some Spanish soap-opera reruns, but romance languages had never been his strength; the news, usually depressing, but- wait! He turned the volume up just in time to hear the newscaster announce:

"Just days after the Los Angeles SeaWorld centre won the court case against animal rights campaigners allowing them to continue keeping great white sharks in captivity, their complete collection of sharks, comprising of over a dozen specimens of five different subspecies, has vanished overnight. The criminals have also caused thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to the aquarium premises and now empty tanks-"

For a split second, Joe thought surely not? But then he remembered just who he was dealing with and pulled out his phone.

 

**_Did I just help you with a SHARK heist????_ **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday: 
> 
> _"I don't know what you've heard, but this isn't how I do business."_
> 
> _"Oh, I know. A few associates of mine have told me all about you. So picky. You've turned your nose up at all sorts of work, but when you do take a job you do it well. Especially when you're motivated."_


	7. Episode 7 - Drastic Measures

**_San Francisco, California - September 2017_ **

 

Joe was sprawled on his bed, for once in his own apartment enjoying the carefully curating combination of priceless decor paired with his comfortable flannel bed-sheets. He was watching HGTV and had the biggest food container he owned —a fourth century Greek dish that he’d picked up from the British Museum several years previously— filled to the point of almost overflowing with popcorn, when his phone rang.

He glared at it out of habit. Sure, he was wide awake, never had got the hang of sticking on a tidy sleep schedule even when he wasn't jet-lagged, but that didn't mean he couldn't be pissed off at the rudeness of it.

He grabbed the phone and down at the caller I.D. It was Webster.

That was a little unexpected. Webster was a stickler for good manners, at least as long as it suited him to be, and every other time he'd had the courtesy to text and see if Joe was awake before attempting conversation. Webster knew just as well as he did what it was like to be hopping time-zones and taking calls in the middle of the night and not even being able to bitch the caller out because that would mean admitting a location.

Like Joe, Webster kept a few phones in rotation in order to manage his professional contacts and reduce the risk of a phone being bugged or tracked for use against him, but by now Joe was had several of his numbers. After L.A they’d kept talking, bouncing ideas off of each other, and when Joe had needed to ditch the phone he'd been using, he'd made sure to send his replacement number to Webster, and Webster had returned the courtesy.

And over time they slipped from texting, to calling, to hooking up in Texas to run a quick scam on the Modern Art museum of Fort Worth and then hitting an impressionist collector in Vancouver barely a month later. The meetings weren’t regular and none of the jobs were huge or attention-seeking-ly ingenious, but it seemed enough to start rumours because without prompting a few of Joe's contacts had started sending information about two man jobs his way, even calling them partners — a word that made Joe’s stomach knot up with embarrassment but also a little bit of something else, warmer and unexpected, that had him considering taking up those offers.

It was that unsettling feeling that prompted Joe to hit accept instead of letting it ring out and then texting Webster to ask what the fuck he was playing at by calling.

“Whaddya want?” he said.

"Joseph Liebgott?"

That wasn't Webster's voice.

"Who is this?" Joe asked, getting to his feet. His go-bag was leaning up against the dresser, he had three fake passports in the desk drawer, if a stranger had Webster's phone then Joe was compromised too, any of the alphabet agencies had the tech to track a call and Joe would need to disappear fast.

"I'm a friend," the voice said. "Or at least I could be."

Shoes, jacket, "Oh yeah?", Joe grabbed his laptop off the desk.

"You see, I have a business proposition for you--"

Joe stumbled. That didn't sound like something a cop would offer. If another criminal had got hold of Webster's phone they might not be able to track him as fast as an agency, but that didn't mean he shouldn't be running. It did change one thing though. "How did you get the phone you're calling from?" he asked.

"Aw, worried about David?" the voice said. "He's found himself in a spot of trouble, I'm afraid. But all you need to do is a little job for me and then we can fix that."

Joe swallowed. "Trouble?" he asked. They didn't just have Web's phone, did they? "Am I right in thinking that you are the trouble?"

"That's right," the man said. "Say 'hello' to your partner David."

"Lieb!" Webster's voice was frantic. "Lieb, I—"

“Not very good at following instructions, is he?” cut in the stranger’s voice. “That could be a problem.”

Joe put his laptop down on the desk and sat back down with a thud. "I don't know what you've heard, but this isn't how I do business," he said.

The man laughed. "Oh, I know. A few associates of mine have told me all about you. So picky. You've turned your nose up at all sorts of work, but when you do take a job you do it well. Especially when you're motivated."

"And you think you can motivate me?"

"I think David here can. You've got yourself a pretty one. And, oh, look at those baby blues," the voice taunted. "Would he still be pretty if I cut them out do you think?"

Joe knew it was meant to provoke him, but he heaved a little at the words anyway.

"You fuck," he snarled. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Oh, it's a little thing," the voice said mildly. "We need you to take a file for us. A few gigabytes of data on a hard drive. Easy."

Joe couldn't help a bitter laugh. Did this guy think he was idiot? There was a reason that Joe stuck to art, jewels, and money. The information trade was way too high risk for him, and all too often meant getting your hands a whole different sort of dirty that he was interested in. "What file?"

"File number 19024, Nixon Chemical Company Research labs."

Joe cursed.

Something like that could be worth millions, billions, if this was industrial espionage; and if these were a different sort of criminal then it could be all sorts of deadly. And it was going to be a bitch to get. He tried to think of how he'd even pull off a take like that and the odds don't come out good in his head.

"You want to talk business?" he said quickly. "Then let's talk business. I know a few people who specialise in the sort of thing you’re looking for." He was already working up a counter offer in his mind. He had money, could give them enough that they could pay someone a little more willing to risk their own skin to make a play for the file. Sure, there was a chance he really wouldn't like what these guys were planning on doing with the file, but there were battles he was interested in fighting and this is definitely wasn’t one of them.

“Don’t complicate this Joseph,” the man countered. “We’ll call again in forty-eight hours, I expect to hear how you’re going to get me what I want.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” Joe pointed out. “I’ve never even heard of Nixon Chemicals, let alone—”

The voice interrupted. "Is your partner a screamer?"

"What?"

"We've told you what we want. He looks like a screamer. Take your time getting the file and maybe we'll find out."

The line went dead.

Fuck.

He stared at his phone. He needed to know more.

Joe grabbed his laptop and searched Nixon Chemicals.

The company’s own page was standard corporation bullshit - buzzwords and stock photos of smiling ‘employees’ in lab coats covering pages and pages of spin about how they’re developing technology, helping communities, and committed to sustainable science, but there’s nothing of substance behind it.

No doubt there were pages out there that were more willing to spill the beans but deep trawling the internet and picking out the real dirt from the conspiracy theories had never been Joe’s skill-set, if he needed more information he had reliable contacts to whom he could outsource that sort of thing if he decided he was actually going to attempt something.

And it was a big if.

Because Joe wasn’t stupid, he knew damn well that if these guys got what they wanted they wouldn’t shake Joe’s hand and let him walk away with Webster to skip off into the sunset. They’d take what they wanted from Joe and then put a bullet in his skull and dump him in a river somewhere and do the same to Web - if they even kept him alive while they waited for delivery.

Even in a best-case scenario, if he complied he risked it getting out that he was susceptible to this sort of leverage and there was every chance somebody would try it again. He might usually work alone but there were still people would could be used against him and Joe wasn’t willing to make them targets or to be manipulated like that.

On the other hand, the call had left Joe with a gut feeling that the guys he was dealing with weren’t the type to be squeamish about killing their hostage and trying again elsewhere if things weren’t going their way.

Forty-eight hours.

That was how long he had to think of a plan. He wasn’t necessarily going to break into Nixon labs and hand over the file, but appearing to be working on it was his best chance of buying more time.

He didn't even understand why they'd chosen to bring him of all people into this. Nothing about that call suggested opportunism, knowing they could take Webster and use him to get Joe on board suggested that they were informed, but it made no sense that they'd pick him when there were other thieves who specialised in the sort of work they wanted done and would take the job without any need for hostages.

 Whatever had driven them to Joe was likely his best chance at finding a vulnerability to exploit to get himself out of it, but for that he needed more information.

He picked his phone up from where he'd discarded it on his bedside table and made a call.

He was greeted with a yawn. "What the fuck? Do you have any idea what ti—"

"That favour you owe me, from Reykjavik?" Joe said, "I'm calling it in."

"Oh shit."

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"What? Oh, no," Skinny said. "Man, I just never thought you'd actually do something about that, but I said I’d owe you one and I meant it."

His shock wasn't unreasonable. Joe hated squandering favours, could rarely shake the knowledge that a day might come where he'd regret having used his chances up prematurely, but right then he wasn't in the mood for chit-chat. "I need you to send me everything you can find on Nixon Chemical Co."

"Everything? Do you have a month of free time to fill?"

"Look for anything on a specific file, 19024; and anything that might get me into their research labs."

"Into their labs?" Skinny said. "Joe what are you doing?"

"And I need you to trace a phone number. 202-555-0194."

"You know—"

"I know hacking isn't magic," he agreed. He'd been lectured on the limits of Skinny's capabilities more than enough to keep him from forgetting that. "Just do what you can."

"Okay," Skinny says. “Give me a few hours and I’ll have a dossier on Nixon Chem for you, and I’ll see what I can get from the phone.”

“Thanks,” Joe said, then cut the call and returned to his laptop to do his own digging.

 

*

 

Skinny was good.

Joe had always known that, but clicking through his information on Nixon Chemicals proved just how good.

Maybe the hacking was a little bit magic after all, no matter what he said.

There wasn't much on the file the kidnappers wanted, only that the 19000 series were all experimental developments, and Skinny hadn't had any hits on the phone yet but that was no surprise. On the company itself, however, he'd hit pay dirt. On the face of things Nixon Chem was a leader in the field of domestic chemical products, owned half the cleaning and gardening brands Joe saw in the supermarket, with side ventures in medicine and environmentally friendly substitutes for chemicals currently being used in technology.

However, for the last twenty years, under the guidance of their current C.E.O Stanhope Nixon, they'd been slowly reducing their state in household markets and taking on Department of Defence contracts. And, because Skinny was the best, the information hadn't stopped there, including helpful notes including the contact information of all three of Stanhope Nixon's mistresses, his daughter’s college transcripts and the fact that she was seeing a therapist on the family’s insurance, that he’d drained his son’s trust fund three years ago and they hadn’t had contact since. If Joe had more time those might be solid angles of approach, sources he could dig into until he had all the information he needed.

But he had thirty-nine hours left until the man who had Webster called back and so he turned his attention to the blueprints.

Skinny had only been able to get him the official publicly-filed copy, hopelessly out of date and significantly redacted, it had been clear from Skinny's message that he was frustrated with himself for not being able to find anything better and he'd promised to keep digging, but they were a place to start.

Not, unfortunately, a starting place that filled him with confidence.

Because instead of clinging to their legacy of a century-old family business and sticking to helpfully insecure historical buildings with outdated security, Nixon Chem housed themselves in a skyscraper. And instead of being helpfully tucked away in a basement like servers ought to be, their secure storage area was on the thirty-seventh floor, which didn't even make sense design wise but certainly scuppered any hopes of tunnelling or blasting his way in.

The plans Skinny had sent suggested that the only way in was the front door. That couldn't be right. For one thing, the building was modern enough for fire-escapes to be mandatory. For another, a building like that would require a small army of maintenance and janitorial and catering staff to keep it running and Joe might not do corporate but he did know how rich people ran their buildings and the snobbier the facility the better the chance of there being separate service corridors because the upper echelons in their corner offices didn't want to see who emptied their trash cans.

He'd need to go in person to scope out the building, but rushing off to Jersey would be a rookie mistake. The guys who took Web might already know Joe's location, but then again, they might not and he didn't want to give it away. If they were running as sharp an operation as they'd need to attempt what they were doing then they'd almost certainly have people watching the Nixon Chem building already. Joe needed to be smart about this.

Routing through different cities was time consuming and would mean less time to scope out his target, but it also meant staying safe. He grabbed the Stark, Grayson, and Banner passports, he didn’t want to be stuck with one identity of this, and mapped out a route that would still give him time to work when he got there but would hopefully let him preserve some anonymity and meant that he could stop off for supplies and equipment at one of his mid-west safe houses on route.

Joe never minded a little danger, crime was high risk work but the rewards were usually worth it. But he'd never played with somebody else's life on the line before and these stakes had his heart beating a little too hard in chest as he shoved his laptop into his go bag and made his way out of the apartment.

 

*

 

He tried to sleep in transit, but while Joe was normally gifted at bedding down anywhere and under any circumstances, every time he closed his eyes his imagination ran riot and kept him from finding any sort of calm. There was no reason for the kidnappers to hurt Webster, it was to their advantage to keep their bargaining chip intact, but that didn’t stop him from picturing the worst.

He was exhausted when he finally he stepped off his final flight in Jersey, glasses and tie firmly in place and passed Joseph Banner's passport through to the security guard, but he still had time to spare.

He hadn't pre-booked a hotel, so he decided to scope out the Nixon Tower in person first. It wasn't a comforting sight. Even from the outside he could see cameras on every corner, covering any approach or getaway, and the doormen might be smiling and offering visitors directions but Joe had sharp enough eyes to see the outlines of guns underneath their jackets. These guys weren't poseurs like Ryder's household guards had been, they had the look of ex-military and were probably in the know about Nixon's DoD contracts, at least enough that they could be convinced that defending Nixon Co. was defending their country and they wouldn't hesitate to use their guns.

There was a reason Joe usually stuck to private collectors or galleries. There were often publicly accessible areas and the security guards were usually for show whereas a company like Nixon Chem had a legal team big enough that they wouldn’t worry about the repercussions of lethal force.

The only thing about Nixon labs that wasn’t text-book high level security is the conspicuous absence of guard dogs. It was bizarre, but also a relief. Dogs had always been one of Joe’s hard-limits when it comes to security. If a place had dogs he wouldn’t touch it. It was silly but there was no way to take a dog down that was both reliable and safe - some people drugged ‘em but Joe would feel like shit if he ever accidentally poisoned a dog playing amateur veterinarian. Joe had no compunctions about punching out a guard or three to get to a target because he figured they knew that concussions were a risk of the job when they took it but dogs didn’t get a choice.

If he had time then infiltrating as low-level staff or an unimportant visitor would be his angle, but while forty-eight hours had been the deadline for progress not completion, he didn’t have the impression that the guys holding Webster were inclined towards patience and those kinds of jobs took time. No, it would have to be an old-fashioned burglary and that meant finding a hotel and going over the building schematics again.

By the time he'd found a place to crash that hit the right mid-point between low-end enough to be unmemorable but not so cheap that he had to worry that the guys who were sending him on this job could just waltz right up and kick his door in, Skinny had emailed him more detailed building plans and a few documents he'd managed to pull from one of Nixon Co.'s board member's emails providing the shareholder version of what security they supposed had covering their assets. It glossed over the details and was written to be showy rather than informative but it painted a worrying picture.

The only vulnerability Skinny had managed to highlight were the vents —the only passage through the building that wouldn't require Joe to bypass at least three layers of security— and he was getting too old to be crawling around on his belly in spaces too small to turn his head. Not to mention that he'd have to get past at least one layer of security and into the building and then somehow find a way into the vents without being noticed because the vents only opened onto the outside of the building above the thirtieth floor and he was willing to bet internal access points weren’t exactly plentiful.

A confused delivery guy play might get him as far as the lobby but Nixon corp wasn't some small-time place where a visitor would be allowed to get far without being verified and even if he could mock up a convincing reason they should let him in Joe doubted he'd be allowed to wander around unsupervised.

No matter how he looked at it, it was the height that was the problem. There were a handful of tricks that could potentially get him into the building, but security got tighter with every floor and there was no easy trick to slip by I.D locked elevators and restricted access stairwells to get to where he needed to be.

Every system had its weak point, he firmly believed that and every experience he’d had backed it up, he just wasn’t so confident that Nixon Chem’s was one that he could he could find and exploit within the restrictions he was under.

There was a coffee shop just opposite the building, independent and woefully neglected, no doubt the corporate drones had somewhere in the building to get their fix. A takeout cup would make another lap of the building look less like a stakeout and maybe he’d find some inspiration.

 

*

 

He managed to get four hours of sleep at his hotel. When he woke it was forty-two hours since the phone call.

It was time to take a risk and remind the assholes he was dealing with that this wasn't amateur hour. He took his phone to a park a few blocks away, right next to the fancy hotel that Nixon Co. recommended to all of their visitors, because while he couldn't avoid them knowing the general area he was in, he wasn't about to give the kidnappers directions to where he slept.

Then he pulled out his phone and call Webster's number back.

"Liebgott," the voice on the other end said. Definitely male, no obvious distortion from any kind of vocal modified, probably the same guy as before but it was impossible to be certain. "I hadn't expected to hear from you so soon, but I can't say I don't appreciate the eagerness."

"I have a way in," Joe replied. "But I'll need more time to get the right equipment together."

"We can accommodate that, just don't take too long," the voice replied. "I'm not sure your partner is enjoying our hospitality."

Joe ground his teeth. "I'm not too sure of your hospitality myself. I want to speak with him. Properly this time, not just one word that could have been recorded." Not that he thought Webster's cry had been faked on their last call, but he needed a better idea of what he was dealing with.

"That can be arranged," the voice said, then barked something away from the phone. "But Liebgott, English only and if either of you try anything funny I'll cut out his tongue."

Well, Joe had known the chance of useful communication had been slim, but he still wanted proof of life.

It took several minutes for the phone to be handed over, clearly they weren't prepared for his request, but finally there was a rustle and he heard Webster's voice gasping his name.

Joe had a million and one questions: who were these guys, how did they get Webster, why _him_? But the one that fell from his lips was, "Web! You hurt?"

"Bruises," came the answer, quick and reassuringly sharp - Webster wasn't falling apart in captivity. "I think they twisted my ankle when they brought me in, but they aren't exactly letting me stroll about to test it."

 A twisted ankle wasn’t so bad, although if he did manage to get the file then he’d have to factor that into his plans to get Webster out of there. “You ever been kidnapped before?” he asked. It wasn’t any of the things he wanted to say but at least it was safe.

“You mean other than that time in Oxford?”

“Doesn’t count as kidnap if I had your permission in advance,” Joe pointed out. “I’m guessing these guys didn’t?”

“Black bag job,” Webster confirmed. “Got me on my way to get breakfast of all things, four guys and a van. I don’t know how they found me, the David King I.D I was using should have been clean.”

“Could somebody have ratted you out?” Joe asked. It wouldn’t help their present situation but if there was third party making trouble again he’d need to deal with that later.

“There was nobody. I use King for downtime, it’s not tied to any of my work,” Webster said. “That’s not important though. Joe, what they’re after, you can’t—”

He was cut off by the kidnapper’s voice, tutting. “Now, now, nobody likes it when the arm candy tries to meddle in business.” There was a pause, and then a pained cry, and Joe’s stomach dropped.

“What did you-?”

“Don’t you worry, that was just a warning,” the voice said. “I don’t break other people’s toys for one mistake, but your partner has a mouth on him and I can’t promise my patience with him is going to last much longer.”

They weren’t going to accommodate to Joe’s delaying tactics easily then, still he needed as much time as he can get. “I need two days to get the equipment, another to pull the job, then the timings will just depend on where you want delivery,” he said, then steeled himself and added, in the coldest tones he could, “But I don’t take bad trades. If he’s not in once piece then—”

“—you don’t deliver,” the voice finished, but he sounded amused. “Hurry now.”

The line went dead and Joe swore loudly enough to draw the attention of several passers-by. One of the things he’d always loved about the work he did was the freedom. Having somebody pulling his strings, not just that but toying with him, made his blood boil.

He’d get the file out of Nixon and Webster away from the bastards who thought this was any way to do business and then Joe was going to burn the whole fucking lot of them to the ground.

 

*

 

In the end he got himself fully geared up faster than his generous estimate. It turned out that if you put enough money on the table then pretty much anybody was willing to arrange an out of hours dispatch and overnight courier delivery. Fuck knew what the hotel front desk people thought that he was up to checking in and then having so many parcels delivered, but he was confident that as long as he kept tipping well nobody was going to ask any nosy questions.

It created an option he hadn’t banked on - the choice between hitting Nixon Co. during the day or night. On one hand, the night strike he’d originally planned would give him the cover of darkness, less potential observers, and fewer people in the building. On the other, acting at night would look inherently suspicious whereas during the day people might be more willing to assume the best of his actions because who would dare attempt to break into Nixon Co. in the middle of business hours on a bright September morning?

Apparently, he would.

It was 7:30am and people were just starting to drift into the area around the building when Joe pulled up on a cheap moped that he’d picked up for 800 bucks off craigslist, in a ratty Alain Robert fan t-shirt he’d been lucky to find in a thrift store, and carrying a backpack full of gear and a go-pro.

There was nothing subtle about this, he was going to be seen, but he was pretty sure people would be rolling their eyes instead of calling the cops - at least not until after it was already too late.

Social media stunts had normalised a world of weird shit in the eyes of the general public. Joe didn’t have much interest in dumb YouTube pranks but certainly made a useful excuse as he started unpacking his equipment, seeming nonthreatening in his conspicuousness.

He geared up and free-climbed the first few feet, then anchored his line on a solid looking drain, and kicked away in a test fall. Everything held.

Unlike most of the stupid YouTube kids, Joe was making his ascent with safety gear, because he wasn’t looked for awed likes on the internet or a broken neck. He was an adequate solo climber, scaled small buildings from the outside fairly often, but his ideal entry point for the Nixon Co. tower was more than five times higher than anything he’d attempted before, which meant it would take a lot more endurance, he’d be dealing with a lot more exposure to wind and the elements, and if he fell unanchored it would almost certainly be lethal. Climbing with ropes might mean a higher risk of suspicion and arrest, but it would also keep him alive.

He shook out his shoulders and pulled himself up onto the wall again, this time for real.

The first few floors were startling easy, the attractive modern art cladding nearly as good as a ladder. A bit of polish or a coat of the fuck-awful anti-climb paint that some places used and this whole plan would have been dead in the water but none of Nixon Co.’s security advisers had considered the possibility that somebody might notice that while their security rose with every level of ascension internally, the exterior security got weaker. The ground floor windows might be bulletproof, but the executive windows swung right open so that the bigwigs could have a breeze gently ruffling their toupees. That was where Joe was aiming.

Floor by floor, he climbed.

It was slow going once he got past the fascia, clinging to window frames and piping. He was using a stretch of wall that ran up the side of the building’s east stairwell, figuring that in a building of that scale most people would do the easy thing and take the elevators so they wouldn’t glance out of the window and see him.

It was hard work, by the tenth floor the ache was settling firmly into his shoulders. He wasn’t used to climbing so far or with so much equipment. The wind tugged at him and while it was a mild day as he got higher he felt a chill settle in, numbing his fingers and making it harder to find the tiny ledges he was using to grip.

He was moving mostly on instinct, feeling out handholds and placing his feet based on memory of where he’d put his hands, knowing that if he looked down it wouldn’t matter that he’d never been afraid of heights because some sights would put anybody off their game.

Everything but the climb he pushed from his mind. In and out. With Skinny’s information he could be quick. No worrying about what was on the file or what nefarious uses it might be put to once he handed it over or how he was going to pull off that handover in a way that let him and Webster walk away without bullets in the back of the head and be left alone in the future.

He’d been keeping a rough count of the floors in his head as he climbed, but there were no numbers on the outside and the building plan had showed varied ceiling heights that meant a simple count of the windows he’d passed wouldn’t be accurate. When he figured he was at around the fortieth floor, he stopped. If he couldn’t be precise then it would be better to come in high and hit the server room from above, moving down through security levels as somebody who appeared to already have been allowed up there.

He pulled the drill he’d carried up with him from where it was strapped to his belt, remembering the calculations he’d made. Half a dozen holes in the frame would weaken it just enough that it could be warped so that Joe could remove the whole pane intact without attracting any of the attention that the noise of a break would.

It took a small eternity to drill the holes as precisely as they needed to be, all the while he was conscious of the fact that all that was keeping him from plummeting down to the unforgiving pavement below was a one-handed grip and a rope whose anchor points were questionable at best.

Then, with one gentle push, the building was wide open to him.

He slipped inside carefully, as expected the stairwell was deserted and had that faint new building smell despite the fact it was years old that spoke of never having had regular use. Why take the stairs when there was such an impressive bank of elevators? Joe shucked the harness and slipped off his backpack. He dumped the drill in the front section and from the main section pulled out a carefully rolled shirt and tie. It wouldn’t be enough to pass himself off convincingly as somebody who belonged there, not when he still needed clothes he could move fast in and one glance below his waist ruined any illusion of being an officer worker, but the moment it would take anybody who came across him to look him over, to consider and discard the possibility of a very lost intern or interviewee, meant precious seconds of a head start that he suspected he’d have need for before the job was through. He whipped his t-shirt off, used it to wipe away as much of the sweat from his climb as he could, then stuffed it into the backpack before pulling on the new clothes. Physically the climb was the hardest part of this job, but mentally the next part would be.

The outside of the building might have been unsigned, but the stairwell was. Obviously, the work of some naive designer with higher hopes for the fitness of the buildings population than any reasonable person would have had. He was on level forty-two, executive offices, although that could mean anything because these days any role above the lowliest of coffee fetching interns was called an executive because workers wanted to boost their resumés and employers thought a fancy title could replace having to pay people what they were worth. It was a few floors over what he’d hoped for but not so many that he was concerned.

He made his way down three flights of stairs before he hit the first of the inter-floor security doors. They had to be a massive fire hazard and Joe wondered who Nixon Co. had paid to get that overlooked when seeking planning approval.

He pulled the doohickey Skinny had sent him from his pocket, the one that just needed to wire into a keypad and would use the magic of science to trick it into thinking somebody was inputting the security code — Skinny had tried to explain how it worked but Joe was only interested in how to work it and badgering Skinny into being more specific about the parameters of what he meant by ‘It’s only good for older or weaker locks, anything too high-end will detect that it’s being messed with a shut the fuck down with a security alert’. He stooped to loosen up the keypads casing and find a place to connect the device and then paused. The door light was already flashing green, somebody had left it unlocked.

Probably it was just that there someone sneaking off for a smoke-break or, given that they were moving between floors, a bit of dipping their pen in the company ink, but good luck like that just made Joe nervous, anticipating the bout of bad luck that was sure to follow in order to balance the slate.

He pushed through the door like he’d just swiped through the lock and nothing was wrong at all, because tentative would look suspicious if there was anyone on the other side of the door, but there was no one.

Well, why would there be? Sure, the time needed for his climb meant that it was regular office hours now, but the building had elevators and the stairs were little more than a safety precaution in event of a power cut and a way for people who were making off with whatever office workers stole —petty cash, staplers, other people’s packed lunches— to sneak around.

There was none of the usual thrill in the way that his heart-beat picked up as he made his way down the final flights to floor thirty-seven. Even if he pulled this job off it wouldn’t be a victory, not when the only reason he was attempting it all was because somebody else was pulling his strings, and not when even if he got what he came for it would only be the first step in what would undoubtedly be a messy and difficult process of getting what he really wanted - Webster away from the pricks who had kidnapped him.

Joe hesitated for a moment outside of the door that entered onto the main hallway of floor thirty-seven. Thus far he’d had good grounds to believe he’d be working with minimal chance of observation, because only the occasional health nut was likely to take the stairs, but once he was in the building proper he had no idea who he’d run into or what he might be up against.

Joe pushed.

The hallway was empty.

He stepped out of the stairwell, acutely aware of the quiet tap of his shoes against the linoleum flooring. Even through the walls he could hear the hum of the servers. He’d worried that somebody would be overseeing them, but he supposed that even a company as security heavy as Nixon Co. would assume that their many layers of building security were sufficient without needing to employ somebody to personally watch inanimate objects.

Each server room was labelled and the one he needed was at the end of the hall. As he made his way across he was alert for interruptions but none came.

The security to stop people accessing this floor had let them cut corners internally and the only restriction on the server room door was the sort of a standard mechanical lock found in offices across the country, Joe could have picked it in his sleep.

He closed the door softly behind him, shutting himself in with the quietly humming technology.

Skinny’s hack hadn’t been able to get into the files themselves, they were strictly on an internal network, but the details of the archiving system were accessible and he’d had managed to narrow down the location of the file to one particular server.

Skinny had also had a lot to say on the subject of the correct way to remove a server from the rack. Joe had listened carefully to his whole speech and then promptly disregarded ninety percent as totally irrelevant. It made no difference to him if careless removal would reduce the lifespan of the drives and hasten their eventual corruption and failure; he intended to be long gone before that became an issue. After all, it wasn't as if the drives were vulnerable to immediate failure -- Nixon Co. were smarter with their tech than that, updating their hardware every few years to keep up with the best available storage efficiency and security.

The biggest concern was that once the server was out its absence would trigger an alert of a fault and, depending on how on the ball Nixon Co.'s I.T department was, somebody might come to check out the problem. Skinny reckoned they should have somebody doing on top of it, but Joe reckoned he was underestimating just how much a company like Nixon Chem was willing to cut corners to save money.

Once the drives were in his bag he'd have to move fast and that meant preparing accordingly. It always helped to have the getaway arranged before it was needed.

He got everything in place, then returned to the rack he needed and took a deep breath.

It took three hard yanks to tear the cables loose and pull the server from the rack, but then it came away in his hands. The clock was ticking.

Since there was no way to move something the size of a server discretely, and the weight of it would have slowed him down, Joe spend another minute impatiently unscrewing each drive from its housing so that he could load them all into his backpack. They were terabyte drives and file 19024 was on one of them but since he had no way of knowing which one held the vital data he’d need to take the lot and sort through them once he was out.

Then he crossed the room, to the grille he’d loosened earlier, and hauled himself up into the ventilation shaft. It took some contortion to pull the cover back into place behind him, and close inspection would show that it had been tampered with, but at least it wouldn’t immediately be obvious that he was in the vents.

If file 19024 had been in hard-copy he’d have had to find another escape route, but the thing about servers was that they hot and therefore needed a lot of airflow to keep them going. Not many buildings outside of Mission Impossible movies actually had vents big enough to fit a grown man and his equipment in but in order to keep the severs at their optimal operating temperature these ones had been built with just about enough room for him to fit.

He couldn’t even crawl really, the dimensions didn’t let him get on his hands and knees, but he could drag himself through the narrow space. Even if he could have moved quicker he wouldn’t have, hurrying made noise and he could hear distantly behind them the clatter of people entering the server room and suspicious noises in the vents would lead them right to him.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to be out of there faster. The dust build-up was ridiculous. He knew it was absurd to think they would care about the cleanliness inside the vents but surely the layer of grime meant that dirt was blowing out of the vents in other rooms.

It took a lot of slow shuffling, and some nerve wracking moments of sliding as he dropped between floors before he reached the point where he could get back out of the vents, a men’s bathroom several floors lower.

Shimmying back out of the vents was awkward, and he landed uncomfortably hard.

He shook out his limbs, relishing in stretching after even that short span of confinement, a cloud of dust falling from him in the process.

Joe stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. Well, any hope for being inconspicuous had to be abandoned. He looked like he’d been rolling about in… well… a dusty air vent.

He sneezed.

Thank fuck that didn’t happen while he was still in the vents.

A hand waved under the taps started them running and he splashed water onto his face then ran his damp hands through his hair. There was nothing to be done about his clothes but at least he could lose the feeling of grime clinging to his skin.

Now for what was the truly risky part of the plan. Climbing the building might have been dangerous but it was a danger he could control, a matter of skill. Bluffing and sneaking his way down through the inside of the building was going to hinge on a whole lot of luck. He was used to playing the odds of coming up behind somebody and slipping through a secure door with them but, although the probability of success remained the same, chancing that working over and over again felt far more likely to end badly.

Floor by floor he stuck quietly to people’s coattails, slipping through secure door after secure door. If it seemed like somebody was going to question his presence he’d grimace companionably and mutter about coffee, when one particularly astute seeming woman in a pristine white dress had eyed the state of his clothing he’s assumed a put upon manner and complained that he didn’t understand why they couldn’t carry out repairs overnight where they couldn’t accidentally spread their mess everywhere, only to have his escape held up by a short but incredibly stern lecture about efficiency, how much extra it cost to have people working anti-social hours, and company loyalty. If Joe hadn’t already known he wasn’t the corporate type, that speech sure as shit would have convinced him.

Despite his anxiety, nobody looked more than twice at him as he made his way through the building. As he’d hoped, it was an anti-penetration security set-up, the checks and guards focused on ensuring that nobody got in to the security areas or up to the higher value targets. He’d worried that once the disruption in the server room had been noticed the alert would go up, but perhaps somebody upstairs was trying to cover their own as about the fact it had happened at all or perhaps they were just slow because the guards seemed oblivious to the possibility of somebody taking something out of the building.

Stepping through the lobby doors, into sunshine and fresh air, felt like an overwhelming triumph, despite how far the job was from done. Experience let him resist the urge to run or to go back to his abandoned moped for a getaway. Instead he stopped for a sandwich at a little cafe just across from the Nixon tower, took his time to look like a man with nothing to fear and nothing to hide.

Then he made his way casually back to his hotel, and set to finding exactly which drive contained the file Webster’s kidnappers wanted.

He sat down with his laptop, taking off the back panel like the YouTube tutorial had explained, and removing the current hard drive, then he paused, looking from the hard drives he’d poured out onto the bed to the slot in his laptop.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work.

He grabbed his phone, called Skinny, and explained the problem.

“Obviously,” Skinny said. “Why would you think a server drive would fit in your laptop?”

“They’re both hard drives, aren’t they?”

Skinny groaned the familiar groan of somebody who felt they were dealing with unimaginable stupidity. Joe knew it because he’d felt it a few times himself when trying to explain the challenges of physical security to Skinny.

“Is there a label on it?” Skinny asked. “Brand name, barcodes, model numbers, that sort of stuff.”

“What? Yeah, loads of technobabble.”

“Good. Sometimes true security nuts peel the labels off even though there’s basically no information on there that anybody who knew what they were doing couldn’t work out anyway,” Skinny said. “First you’re looking for a measurement. Probably 3.5”, whereas laptops take 2.5”.”

“I see it. So, do I need a desktop or another server to hook them up?”

“Woah. First you need to check the connection. I’d guess Nixon Chem keeps their tech pretty up to date, but it would be stupid to assume when you can check. You’re looking for something that says SATA, SAS, or IDE.”

Joe scanned the label, wondering why these things couldn’t just be simple. “Near the top right, there’s a bit that says SAS,” he read.

“Oh good, that’s compatible with pretty much any modern desktop then,” Skinny said and Joe sighed in relief. If he’d had to obtain a server and reinstall them all to check them or however shit like that worked… well every delay was more time Webster spent stuck with the fuckers who’d taken him.

“Wait!”

Joe paused. “What?”

“The other disks _should_ be the same…”

“…but you want me to check?”

“The form factor—”

“The wha—?”

“— _size_ will be the same. And it would be a sloppy tech to mess about with adaptors in a professional server set up, but it’ll take you like two minutes to check. Just in case.”

Joe sighed. Tech people. Why? “Alright, so once I’ve confirmed they’re all the same…?”

“Just find a Best Buy or wherever.” Finally, some good news. “Any cheap PC from the past few years should take them. You can handle setting up a desktop on your own, right?”

Joe rolled his eyes, feeling faint stirrings of amusement despite the mess of the situation. “I’m not a super-hacker but I’m not your eighty-year-old grandmother either Skinny, I can handle that.”

Just before he cuts the call Joe heard, faintly, “My grandma was a computer programmer in the days they did all the programming on paper, she knows more than you ever will!” which he didn’t bother responding too.

Right now he had a computer to buy, hard drives to check, bad guys to trade with, and a… Webster to rescue.

After a moment of consideration, he packed all his shit up. He’d spent long enough at this hotel, didn’t want to raise any more suspicions by having any of the staff see him taking an entire fucking desktop computer up to his room.

It took two hours to check into a new hotel, further from the Nixon tower this time, and get a PC bought and set up in his room. Then it was a slow slog of checking one drive at a time. Each drive had a list of the files it contained and he didn’t look further than that, trying drive after drive until looking for the one with file 19024.

He’d gone through eleven drives, beginning to worry that Skinny’s information was bad or that he’s emptied the wrong server, before the saw it.

File 19024.

The file he was going to trade for Webster.

All he needed to know was that he had it. Its content was irrelevant to Joe’s goals. There was no reason for him to look.

He clicked anyway.

It had been a long time since Joe had taken a chemistry class and even then he’d been a middling student, mostly interested in practical labs where he could play with the burners and make stuff explode. He didn’t understand much of what he was seeing but…

He copied the file over to his secure email and sent it to Skinny.

Two minutes later his phone rang.

“Joe, what the fuck have you got yourself mixed up in?” he snapped. “That’s… that’s chemical weapons plans you just sent me.”

That’s what Joe had thought. “Fuck!”

“Joe? Joe, I can tell you’re doing this job for someone else, but just call it off,” Skinny said. “Your reputation can take the hit. You’d hardly be the first guy to bail on a contract over bad intel.”

“I’m not doing this job for the money or the prestige, they threatened me. If I don’t go along with their demands and get them the file, they’ll kill Web.”

Any improbable hope that those threats were a bluff had dissipated as soon as he saw what was in the file. The guys who’d taken Webster weren’t the type to play around.

Skinny sighed. “Is one guy’s life worth the harm this could do in the wrong hands?”

The pragmatist in Joe said no right away. “We don’t know what they’re planning on doing with this,” his sentimental side forced from his lips. “They might not…” He couldn’t finish. Even in his most optimistic delusions he couldn’t pretend that Webster’s kidnappers weren’t exactly the sort of people who’d misuse this information horribly. “Look, if they want to kill people all this is really going to change is how.”

“This is… shit, I don’t understand all of it,” Skinny admitted. “But I see enough to know that this is evil stuff Joe. It’ll kill a lot of people, and those deaths won’t be quick or clean. This says the DoD rejected it as inhumane, and they aren’t exactly a squeamish bunch.”

“So I just let them kill Webster? Walk away from this whole deal and hope they don’t come after me too?” It wasn’t good enough. There had to be something. If he did the right thing, Webster died. But refusing wouldn’t help either. Even if he broke his end of the deal, his first approach to this job had been to palm it off on somebody else, a company like Nixon Chemicals would have backups so these bastards could just try again — there were plenty of thieves who didn’t care about what damage they did as long as they got their pay-out.

He could hand the drive over and try to save Webster, tell himself that whatever horrible deaths followed would have happened with or without him, but he wasn’t sure how he’d live with himself if he did. Anyway, as soon as he did that, he and Webster stopped being assets and started being witnesses and guys who were willing to kidnap people and threaten torture to get stolen weapons plans weren’t the kind of guys who left witnesses around to talk.

“Did you track the phone number I gave you?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, but the location I have…”

“Remote? All entry and exit points controlled?” Joe guessed. The weaknesses he’d hoped for had become highly unlikely the moment he’d seen the plans and realised he was dealing with even more dangerous people than he’d first thought.

“Militia compound,” Skinny summarised. “And a well-established one at that. Maybe you could take it with a dozen guys, but—”

“This isn’t a George Clooney movie, I couldn’t rustle up whole team of criminals who’d put their own necks on the line to help me if there was a big pay-out, never mind just because it’s the right thing to do.”

“What about the cops?” The trepidation was clear in Skinny’s voice, but that he was even suggesting it was a clear sign of just how out of his depth he thought Joe was.

“I…” Joe couldn’t believe he wasn’t dismissing the option right out of hand, but no, it wouldn’t work. “If the kidnappers are keeping tabs on me then going to the cops would be like shooting Web myself,” Joe says. “And local PD aren’t going to storm a militia compound on something as flimsy as an anonymous tip.”

“Well, what about Ron? All the records show he really has gone fed,” Skinny said tentatively. “He… You could contact him discreetly and I think he’d listen, at least.

“N—” Joe paused. No. No, he didn’t want to ask Speirs for anything, trust him with anything, not after how last time had turned out. But he’d had Skinny dig deeper after the betrayal, to find the things a cursory hack would miss, and it turned out that Speirs was making quite a name for himself as an F.B.I consultant. Half informant, half undercover operative, and surprisingly close to some very high-ranking people. He’d certainly take notice if Joe told him about the weapon plans and might just have enough sway to convince his people to hit the compound with real force.

The thought of going to Speirs for help wasn’t an appealing one, but it was still a step up from the alternatives.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to contact him the way I did for Chicago,” Joe commented, as close as he was willing to go to admitting that Speirs was his best shot.

“Give me five minutes,” Skinny assured him. “I can get you a secure line to him.”

Because Skinny was a genius, he did it three.

It took Joe another minute to plan out what he wanted to say, and perhaps a little more time to work up the nerve, but Ron picked up in seconds.

“Ronald Speirs.” The greeting was cold but Speirs always did have terrible phone manners.

“It’s Liebgott,” Joe replied.

“This… is a surprise.” For both of them. But Joe had no time for games. _Webster_ had no time for games.

“A job has gone bad,” Joe confessed. Time to bite the bullet. “I need your help.”

“Why?” Speirs’ tone suggested he suspected a trap.

“Because what I’ve taken is too dangerous to hand over to the guys who I’ve promised it to,” Joe explained. “But they have Web.”

“Who?”

For a moment Joe had to think it over, had Webster been using a different alias in Chicago? No, Joe was sure he’d called Web by his name at least a few times in front of Speirs. “David, from the Chicago job. The other guy on the team you screwed over.” Now was not the moment to bring up the conflict between them, but despite everything Joe couldn’t forget it.

“How is he connected to this?”

Was Speirs being deliberately obtuse? “The guys who want the plans kidnapped him, said they’d kill him if I didn’t steal a hard drive from a company called Nixon Chemicals. And probably if they see cops too close, that’s why I approached you through back-channels.”

There was a long pause. “Why not just finish the job?”

“I already said. It’s wrong. These guys make me look like a boy scout.” Speirs might have switched sides but surely he still understood there were far worse things in the world than art theft. “I wouldn’t have gone after the information in the first place if they hadn’t threatened Web, but now I’ve seen what it is I can’t risk handing it over and them getting away with it.”

“You want me to arrange a hostage negotiation?”

“I want you to take them down. I can…” Handing over any information to Speirs after his betrayal turned Joe’s stomach, but these guys weren’t like him and Webster and even the master thief Speirs once was, they needed taking down by whatever means necessary. “And I can give you the drive and where to find them, but you have to leave me room to get Web out.”

“That’s not how this works Liebgott,” Speirs said. “You can give me the information and I can arrange to have them brought in, and if there’s a hostage then the same measures will be taken to ensure his safety as in any other hostage situation, but I can’t just give a pair of wanted criminals a free pass.”

Joe could bargain. He was handing over a group of dangerous individuals, surely there was room for a trade, but even then he doubted it would be enough for Speirs to let them walk. He just wasn’t a negotiating type of guy. It didn’t take much weighing up. Ending up in custody wasn’t a good option but it was miles ahead of dead, or complicit in potential atrocities _and_ dead. “I’ve seen how fucking sloppy the F.B.I can be,” Joe pointed out. “I don’t want the same effort as with any other hostage, I want your best.”

There was another pause.

“You’re in no position to negotiate.”

“I’m not negotiating,” Joe said. “That was a demand. Every effort to keep him safe, because if you’re going to let them half-ass this and get Web killed then I may as well handle this myself.”

“I need details about what you’ve got, proof your information is as valuable as you think it is,” Speirs said.

“You might have lost your mind and swapped sides,” Joe snapped, “But I haven’t gotten stupid. I’ll give you what I have on the kidnappers and the compound, but you don’t get the drive until the job is done.”

“The F.B.I aren’t going to want to move without hard evidence.”

“Bullshit.” They’d done so before and they’d do so again.

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” Ron asked.

“Because that’s not my style. And because if I thought I had any other option I’d take it before I came to a backstabber like you for help.”

Silence. Joe could keep arguing, but what more was there to say? Either Speirs wanted to stop the bastards or he didn’t.

“I need everything you have on the site and who we’re dealing with,” Speirs said finally. “If we use standard tactics then you’ll need to be the one making the trade so as to not raise suspicion too early. Can you fake a substitute of what they want or do we—”

Joe eyed the pile of hard drives on his bed. “I can bring a decoy drive that will hold up to visual inspection, but the minute they try to look at what’s on it—”

“Things shouldn’t get that far. Send me what you have, I’ll talk to my contacts and let you know when it’s time to move.”

“Okay,” Joe said. He was pretty sure a lot of Skinny’s intel came from F.B.I files so Speirs wasn’t getting any more than he likely already had, but there was nothing that could be done about that.

Joe cut the call.

It was out of his hands now, he couldn’t make any big move until Speirs confirmed that he’d got the backup that would make a rescue viable, but that didn’t mean he was going to sit around doing nothing. First he checked the other hard drives until he found one with fairly innocuous contents that he wouldn’t feel too bad about getting handed over as a decoy even if things went bad, then he packed his bags and went down to ask at the hotel desk about renting a car.

 He left the whole computer set up and most of the drives behind when he left, trusting that when the hotel staff checked the room they’d be sufficiently suspicious to call the cops who could handle the clean-up. Joe KEPT the decoy drive but took the real one to the nearest post office and had it sent to one of his reasonably secure P.O boxes, which should keep it away from nefarious hands for a while and also meant that when the time came to hold up his end of the bargain with Speirs Joe could just direct him to the box instead of having to deal with him personally.

Then he started driving south west. He didn’t dare get too close to the compound, he needed travel time as a potential stall, but he also didn’t want any delays once Speirs decided it was time for the exchange.

En route he made a stop to meet one of the shadier contacts of his own shady contacts, and paid in careful cash for a gun. Bringing in Speirs and the F.B.I back up meant that he hopefully wouldn’t have to shoot a way out himself, but Joe wasn’t going in empty handed against guys like this.

It felt strange walking out of there with the piece tucked away in his jacket. He’d handled a gun before but he didn’t make a habit of carrying one. When he’d been young it had been about the distinction between regular burglary and a slap on the wrist versus armed robbery and a five-year minimum sentence. As he’d got older, it had been about the extra tension that carrying a gun brought to confrontations and the lingering memory of being told never to carry a weapon he wasn’t prepared to use.

Joe had done a lot of questionable things in his line of business, but he had never killed anyone before. Roughed them up or thrown them into the path of danger? Sure, and accidents happened and decisions sometimes had far reaching consequences, but he’d never intentionally ended a life. None of which changed the fact that as he laid the gun on the passenger seat and took off again, the only concern he had was that shooting would be too easy a death for the kidnappers if they've hurt a single hair on Webster's head.

He checked into a cheap motel about an hour’s drive from where Skinny claimed Webster’s phone was, the same location the militia were headquartered in and presumably where the kidnappers were holding him, and waited.

Every buzz of his phone had him tensing up. Would it be Speirs with a plan? Or would it be the kidnappers with a final deadline that would force Joe to go ahead without backup?

Mostly, it was Facebook, reminding him to connect to the internet to sync the dummy account he’d had set up to scout information on a potential job. Also, three texts from pizza hut about their latest deal and one wrong number call from a drunk sounding girl who was using a friend’s phone because hers was flat and was very disappointed to learn that Joe wasn’t her boyfriend and wouldn’t be coming to pick her up.

The F.B.I called first. He was briefed over the phone. Speirs tried to convince him to meet in person but there was no way Joe was just going to walk right into the F.B.I’s arms. No, no matter what Speirs said about proving himself willing to co-operate, Joe wasn’t going anywhere there was a chance of them getting overexcited and arresting him before all this was over.

Once the planning calls were done, every step of how things were supposed to play out confirmed, Joe called Webster’s kidnappers.

It was disgusting how friendly they were as they laid out the terms of the hand off, as if this were a real business deal or they thought Joe might like to work with them in the future. Even if they hadn’t been kidnappers who had forced him into a job Joe would have disliked them as soon as he read the information Skinny had sent over about what they did. Joe was as anti-authoritarian as the next guy, but there was a difference between being opposed to surveillance and in support of the separation of powers, and stockpiling weapons in a cult-like compound. Even if they hadn’t messed with him, this was a group that needed to be destroyed.

The kidnappers confirmed the address Skinny had already given him and they seemed to buy Joe’s story about still being up in Jersey, telling him to drive down overnight and meet them first thing the next morning. If he’d been where he said, then an overnight drive would be a smart way to slow his reflexes and keep him off his game. As it was, it gave him all night to prep.

He set out the next morning with a final call to Speirs’ people, gun weighing heavily against him on one side, the decoy drive an equally weighty burden on the other.

Joe surveyed the compound as he approached. There were no fences. That made sense, this far out there was little risk of a random hiker stumbling upon them and they’d be able to see anybody approaching and be ready, through Speirs claimed his people had countermeasures for that. The militia clearly weren’t worried about keeping people in either. It fit with the information he had, the group was half gang and half cult, keeping its members kept close with a careful balance of fear and fraternity.

There were two guys waiting to meet his car, glaring and visibly armed. Excessively so, especially given that Joe was just one guy and they were supposed to be working together. That didn’t bode well.

Neither of them spoke as he climbed out of the vehicle, nor in response to his greeting.

Grunts, in the truest sense of the word.

He grudgingly let himself be herded into the first of the buildings on the compound, where another man was waiting. He was marginally better dressed than the other two, and he carried himself with authority.

“Liebgott,” he greeted, with a smile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an alligator. “You have the drive?”

Joe couldn’t be certain he was the same guy Joe had spoken to on the phone but it seemed likely. “Of course,” he said. He’d told them as much on the phone and he’d have to be dumber than rocks to walk into a deal like this empty handed. “And do I finally get a name for you?”

“You can call me Smith,” the man offered, though it was almost certainly a lie. He held out his hand.

Joe scoffed. “I want to see Webster.”

“And we want to see the drive.”

“No.” Joe was outnumbered, outgunned, out of his depth. He knew it and they knew it to, but still he let no fear show. “I told you my terms. I don’t trade in damaged goods.”

“Very well,” Smith said tersely. “You see your partner is intact as agreed, then you hand over the drive.”

"Of course," Joe said. He'd be handing over _a_ drive at any rate.

He must have been convincing because Smith clapped him on the shoulder companionably and the grunts didn't follow as he was led deeper into the compound.

Joe had always had a knack for remembering routes and he kept track of the turns in his head. He could find his way back along the same path if he had to, but he’d rather find another way out, not least because the route they walked down doubled back on itself several times in what was surely a deliberate though failed attempt to disorient him.

It took a few minutes before they finally stopped at a locked door, two guards outside that could be a serious problem if Joe couldn’t get them away from here before things went to shit.

Smith led him inside.

It was a stark room, whitewashed walls and a bare bulb handing from the ceiling — stereotypical cell decor.

In the centre of the room was a single metal chair where Webster was restrained.

It was shoddily done. Cuffs wrapped around the chairs frame and holding his wrists behind him. Joe had bound Web more comprehensively than that just for fun, though he’d also been more careful to avoid points where the pressure of the restraints could do harm. They hadn't even bothered to restrain his legs, but then again it's not like being able to kick was much use to Web against an armed guard, especially with an injured ankle.

Joe was more concerned about the state of his head. The right side of Webster’s face was swollen and almost obscured by bruises, a thick track of blood running from this temple down his cheek to soak into the gag that was digging into his jaw. Most worryingly, the eye that wasn’t swollen shut was unfocused.

It took a lot to rein in his glare but instead Joe raised his eyebrows at Smith, who seemed to be the ringleader. “You call this undamaged?” he asked. “He’s hardly useful for honey-pot scams with a ruined face.”

“Oh, a little ice will clear that up,” Smith said dismissively. “In a few weeks you won’t even be able to remember it happened.”

The only way Joe wouldn’t be remembering this was if the F.B.I fucked up and he got a bullet to the skull instead.

"I suppose his current state will have to do," Joe sighed. "Untie him."

Smith laughed. "The drive," he demanded, holding out his hand once more.

The appearance of cooperation. That was what Speirs had claimed Joe's only role was. Keeping the kidnappers thinking they were winning right up to the moment of their defeat. The assignment didn't exactly play to Joe's strengths but he smiled and said, "A deal is a deal."

He was careful not to flash his gun as he reached into his jacket and withdrew the decoy drive. “As requested," he said. "I see now why you came to me. Nixon Chem security is top tier." Or at least claiming that might hamper their efforts to send somebody else after the real file should this go bad.

"And yet you managed it."

"Well I am the best," Joe reminded him.

"I'm surprised you even need a partner," Smith remarked. "If you're as good as you say why not just work alone and avoid sharing the profit?"

Big talk from a guy with a compound of thugs backing him up. "I don't deal in the kind of penny ante jobs where splitting the cut would be a problem," he dismissed. Cutting his gaze to Webster, Joe added, "He has his uses. Now, if that's all...?"

"Yes, I think we're done here.”

There was something a little too final in Smith’s tone.

Both Speirs and the files Skinny hacked had claimed that these guys didn't do their killings on site. Apparently, it was a strategy to minimise the risk of the compound being investigated. According to Speirs it was a lot harder to get a warrant for a place that might be connected to a person who might have committed a crime than for the site of a murder. The F.B.I would be closing in, but the whole plan hinged on the fact that Joe and Webster were going to be taken away from the compound and then killed because that was easier than moving bodies.

The gun Smith was pulling from his hip said otherwise.

Joe reached into his jacket but he already knew he wouldn’t be fast enough. He’d been putting too much effort into appearing non-threating to be able to out draw a man whose gun was already in his hand.

 

_BANG!_

Joe flinched instinctively, but there was no pain.

Opposite him, Smith collapsed.

Joe looked first to the door, but it was still shut, then his head whipped around to look at Webster. Webster who was standing, a gun grasped in slightly shaky hands.

He stepped over Smith and grabbed the gun from Web’s hands, firing a second shot into the air so that to the goons outside it would hopefully sound like it was their boss taking Webster and him out as planned.

Webster pulled the gag from his mouth. "I hope you have an exit plan," he spat, voice rough but eyes far sharper than they’d been moments before.

Joe frowned. The F.B.I were coming, but they were unlikely to be fast enough to be much help with an escape. He and Web had minutes at most before the guys outside would start to wonder why their boss hadn’t come out yet and there was no way that door would keep them out for long. “I have people coming but we’re going to have to hold out long enough for them to get here.”

He leaned down and picked up Smith’s dropped gun, then handed Webster back the one Joe had taken from him. “This yours?” he asked. It seemed unlikely Webster’s captors wouldn’t have searched him as soon as they had him, and odd that Webster had managed to get kidnapped in first place if he’d been armed.

“I lifted it from one of the guys who brought me water,” Web replied. “It’s been a bitch keeping it out of sight this whole time. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have it, but there wasn’t much I could do without know where I was, and they had different people bringing me food every time so I knew there were more people here than I had bullets.”

“You pick-pocketed a gun while restrained in a chair?” Joe said, reluctantly impressed.

“I’m good with words,” Webster replied. “Kept the guy too distracted hitting me in the face for him to care what my hands were doing. They were pretty half-assed with the restraints, after all even if I got out of the chair I wouldn’t make it out of the room.” He laughed weakly as he rubbed at his bruised and scraped up wrists, clearly the kidnappers weren’t _that_ half-assed with the restraints. “Plus, your lessons on getting out of handcuffs under pressure were so… memorable.”

A memory that Joe had never wanted to be tainted by association with anything like this.

“Are you alright?” Joe asked. “Your ankle—?”

Webster shook his head. “My ankle’s fine, bruised maybe, nothing noteworthy but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have them thinking I couldn’t run.”

Joe nodded. “Man, I was going to bitch you out for been so fucking stupid as to get grabbed,” he admitted. “But it’s kind of hard to when you’re apparently fucking good at dealing with it. Are you _sure_ you’ve never been kidnapped before?”

“Not that good,” Webster contradicted. “Even with the gun I had no way of getting out of here. I assume you have?”

“The backup I mentioned? The feds.” Webster’s eyes went wide and Joe couldn’t begrudge him his surprise. “These guys are pros and messing with some seriously dangerous shit, they need taking out for good and that’s a job for real professionals.”

“If the F.B.I are coming for the guys running this place…?”

“Yeah, we’re also gonna have a hard time walking away…” Joe admitted, “But it was the only option.”

“Right.” Webster sat back down in his chair.

“Woah, woah,” Joe said. “Don’t get comfy. We’ve still gotta be ready for those fuckers outside getting suspicious any minute and we should at least try and get around the F.B.I guys. I’m just trying to decide if we should shoot them or if that would just bring more running.”

“Shoot federal agents?!”

“No! Jeez, Web, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life rotting in a cell. Shoot the fuckers on the door.”

Webster bit his lip, going pale as he glanced towards where Smith lay. Joe hadn’t bothered to check his pulse, but the total lack of movement suggested that Webster’s shot had been placed with maximum effectiveness. And Web didn’t look pleased to have taken revenge on his captor.

“Oh, don’t make that face,” Joe said. “We can just shoot them in the knees or the shoulders or something to take them down. I’m not suggesting a we start a killing spree with the F.B.I about to burst in here.”

“I… I’ve never shot anyone before,” Webster said, and oh, he was looking a little wild about the eyes again. Perhaps he wasn’t taking this whole kidnapping affair quite as calmly as he seemed.

Joe sidestepped, cutting off Webster’s view of Smith. “Look,” he began, then remembered that was exactly the opposite of what he wanted Webster to be doing. Reassurance didn’t come naturally to him. “Everything has worked out so far, I got your location and backup coming, you got the gun and took ou—” No, that wasn’t the right approach. “—and covered me when things were about to go bad. You’ve just gotta keep it together and follow my lead a little longer. You can handle this.”

“Right,” Webster said, shutting his eyes and nodding. “Take out the guards and then find a safe spot while the feds take out the rest of them?”

“That’s right,” Joe reassured him. He’d like to work an escape in their somewhere, but Webster looked too rattled to deal with thinking about that complication which meant that Joe would be figuring it out on his own. “We’ve just gotta take out one guard each. And if we move now we might even be able to pick a hiding place that’ll let us slip by the feds.”

He watched as Webster took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself, and then nodded.

“I’ll take right, you take left,” Joe said, and Webster stood again and followed him to the door. He mouthed a countdown, then pushed the door open.

Both goons turned, and Joe didn’t wait to see the look of surprise on their faces when they registered it was him and Webster leaving not their boss. He just turned to the right, raised his gun and fired off two shots, one in the leg and the other in the shoulder, enough to drop the guy and hopefully keep him distracted for a while without bringing the feds down on his head for murder.

He looked left, but the other guard was still standing, gun half raised as Webster stood frozen.

Joe shot first.

He grabbed Webster by the sleeve and tugged him onward, leaving the wounded men behind. “C’mon,” he hissed, retracing his steps from earlier and wishing he’d paid more attention to the rooms he’d passed by so that he’d know where would be good to hide.

A few non-lethal shots wouldn’t keep the guards down for long, he needed to get somewhere out of sight and semi-secure before they were followed. He dragged Webster for several minutes before he found a likely looking door. And by likely looking he meant that it looked like it might be a closet. Of course, he could be wrong and it could be filled with armed men just waiting to gun them down, but they couldn’t just keep running until a miraculous option with no flaws appeared.

Joe yanked open the door.

Yeah, cleaning closet. No lock, which would be a problem, but it was also be lower priority in a search. He shoved Webster inside, then stepped in after him and tugged the door shut behind them, leaving them in total darkness.

It was pretty cramped in there and the whole place stunk of bleach, but it was better than the stench of blood and days old fear-sweat. “Fuck…” he whispered. He couldn’t believe he’d been reduced to hiding in a closet and hoping that Speirs would come and save him. Even in his earliest days in the business he’d never been quite this helpless.

“I can’t believe they really expected me to sit around and hope for a rescue like some fairy-tale princess in a tower,” Webster grumbled. Joe would be annoyed by his bitching —who complained about their kidnappers underestimating them? And generally hiding worked better if you were being quiet— but pissed off was so much easier to deal with than panicky.

That didn’t explain why the next words slipped from his mouth. “But you did know I was coming for you, right?”

For a moment there was nothing but darkness and silence.

“What?”

“You didn’t think I’d just let ‘em hurt you?” Joe said, and fuck he could feel the word-vomit welling in his mouth. He hadn’t had an adrenaline crash like this since he was sixteen and finally graduating from joy-riding and lifting wallets to pulling real jobs, but the last five days had been… fuck. “Getting into the Nixon research labs was a bitch, but I… shit they could have asked me to fly to England and steal them the Crown Jewels right out of Buckingham Palace and I’d—”

“—Tower of London.”

“What?”

“The British Crown Jewels are kept at the Tower of London, not Buckingham Palace,” Webster corrected.

Joe let out a huff of reluctant laughter. “Yeah, well, if that had actually been what they’d asked for then I’d have fucking googled them on the way over.”

They stood in the darkness, but not quite silence, because now that he was listening for it Joe could rise-hitch-fall rhythm of Webster’s slightly laboured breathing. His words didn’t sound overly panicky, but he might well be in pain, Joe knew all too well how the ache of a few bruising hits to the ribs could linger.

At first he thought the brush of Web’s hand against his was an accident, just a consequence of the close quarters of the closet, but when he didn’t withdraw Joe pressed back, slipped his fingers between Webster’s parted ones and squeezed.

They would get out of this. Even if they couldn’t evade the feds now there was still the possibility of escaping in transit or even a jailbreak. Joe had made up his mind. No matter what happened, they would not go down like this.

The sound of distant gunshots signalled the arrival of the F.B.I, probably with local law enforcement for backup, which removed the weight of the militia from Joe’s chest but only made the possibility of arrest more pressing. It was always going to be a tricky balance, pitting the cops and the kidnappers up against each other and then slipping out while they were both occupied by the chaos. And Speirs had already tried to take Joe in once and failed, so it was obvious to Joe that this time he’d be more determined than ever to see Joe in custody.

As both the voices and shots grew nearer, he fought some irrational instinct to pull Webster close, but finally the sounds of fighting gave way. It was too early to move, not when he didn’t know where the feds were, yet if he waited to know where they were then they’d already be right on top of him and Webster.

Joe was still struggling to pick the best option when footsteps and voices sounded in the hall outside and took the choice away from him.

“Why aren’t we checking all the doors?” said a female voice.

“They’re a heavily armed militia with a strong ethos of pride and violent anti-government action,” that was Speirs. Joe had hoped to avoid dealing with the man personally. “They’re not going to be hiding, they’re going to have found a defensive position and be preparing to resist arrest.”

“What about the hostage and the guy who went in to do the trade, the one who gave us the tip?” said the same woman. “Special Agent Rattigan said we should arrest them too.”

“And you think an internationally wanted art thief and his partner would hide in a closet?” Speirs said scornfully, and Joe frowned, because Speirs knew better. Back when they’d been allies they’d made use of more than a few storage spaces. “They’ll have gone to ground somewhere defensible too, away from the militia members. Fan out and secure anywhere that could be used for a kill-box or standoff first, our estimates on the militia numbers were highly speculative and we shouldn’t give any stragglers the opportunity to resist.”

“Excuse me, aren’t you just a consultant?” piped up a different voice. “Shouldn’t we wait for—”

Joe knew exactly what look was on Ron’s face as the doubter’s voice withered and died.

The footsteps moved down the hall, though it was hard to track how many when he didn’t know how many people had been in the group in the first place. Joe held his breath for several seconds, giving any stragglers plenty of time to clear out or to reveal themselves, but if the FBI were walking right past their hiding place then this would likely be the best chance they had.

It was tempting to push the door open slowly, but if somebody was still waiting in the corridor then that would give them warning, so he took a deep breath and squeezed Webster’s hand, then pushed the door open, blinking rapidly at the sudden light.

Deserted.

He turned back to Webster, who was rubbing the eye that wasn’t swollen shut and grimacing in the light.

“C’mon,” Joe said, tugging at Webster’s hand. “We need to find a route to the exit that’ll avoid all the places the feds are targeting.” Even once they were out, Joe would still have to out-drive them to make their getaway since presumably they had a few people on the perimeter to make sure none of the militia guys tried to make a break for it, but the day Joe was out-driven by a suit was the day he abandoned his criminal career and walked right into a police station with his hands up.

"And then?"

"Then I get you out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
> _“It would be much easier to study it somewhere with better light.”_  
>  “By all means, make a complaint to the curator.”  
> “Or, we could take matters into our own hands.” 


	8. Episode 8 - Plain Sailing

**_Italy, December 2017_ **

 

There was no such thing as having it all or getting away with everything.

Joe loved his work but it did come with catches. When he’d first begun to excel in his career, holidays had been problematic. His mother wanted him home, but doing so would be barely a step short of walking himself directly into the nearest police precinct for how easily it would lead to his arrest — he was pretty sure step one of looking for an escaped fugitive was to check out the homes of their loved ones during holidays and while he entertained the possibility that the cops might not think of the fact that not everybody celebrated the same holidays he wasn’t going to stake his freedom on hoping for ignorance. Those years had been frustrating, but in time he’d progressed far enough to be able to work around those issues. The Feds knew too much about his family to make going home for the holidays a safe option, but they could only monitor his family’s travel so closely before it became a rights violation. He couldn’t bring his whole family out to him for every holiday, they had lives too, but he made a point of seeing them at least once a year and this time his family had seemed impressed by his arrangements to spend Hanukkah just outside the town the family had once come from, his mother had had brought with her an album of photos that had been accrued from various relatives too old for Joe to have known, and his sisters had enjoyed taking the time to visit the locations where Joe’s great-grandmother and various distant aunts and uncles had once been photographed, while his father had seemed perfectly content to follow them with an Italian phrasebook and argue with Joe’s sisters if that was a better way of communicating with the locals than Google translate.

Of course, once the family visit was over if he raised the wrong flags then there was no doubt that law enforcement wouldn’t hesitate to come down hard with harassment dressed up as monitoring and checking he hadn’t asked them to smuggle anything back, so before and after every trip Joe made a point to keep on the move for a while so that the visit couldn’t be linked to him.

It had been a long time since he’d hit anywhere in Italy so, once he’d seen his family off, he booked flights. He’d landed in Rome on the 22nd and taken a few days to crash. Then, because it was Italy, he abandoned subtly to rent the most beautiful car he could find and spent the 25th driving over the Apennines, taking advantage of the fact that most Italians were busy doing whatever it was that catholics did on their holidays to cruise along deserted roads with the top down, heated seats balancing out the rush of cold wind in his hair as he made his way across to Venice.

There was perhaps a little too much temptation in the city to make it an ideal place to lay low, but if he’d stayed somewhere without priceless art he knew himself well enough to be sure he’d only end up finding other sorts of trouble out of boredom. Touring the galleries of Venice would serve as an easy way to occupy his time, especially if he stuck to the smaller places with less high-status works and fewer tourists.

He’d been passing a morning in a tiny side-street gallery with fewer than half a dozen rooms when he spotted a head of dark hair hunched over a sketchbook and as he moved in a semi-circle around the room he checked, and oh yes, that profile was familiar too.

Their paths had been crossing more often of late and in the privacy of his own mind Joe won't pretend that's been wholly accidental but he hadn't expected to see Webster there. As far as he knew, Webster had been laying low ever since they'd parted after the milita mess. He'd stuck with Joe for a little while they'd escaped but he'd seemed restless and jumpy the whole time and after a few days he'd taken off. It had worried Joe to let him go like that, especially knowing that Webster had been taken while hiding out somewhere he'd thought was safe, but it hadn't seemed wise to try and confine him. Webster's communication had been sporadic at first, just the odd text to let Joe know he hadn't found himself in more trouble, but gradually he'd grown chatty again, although there'd been no mention of new jobs. He hadn't mentioned coming to Venice.

Well, Joe had given Web his space but he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity of Webster sitting right in front of him.

First, he worked his way back around the room until he found an angle the would render his approach both casual and discreet. As he closed in, Webster tensed, and Joe didn’t think he’d have done that four months ago but at least Web was still too cool to turn.

Joe stepped up behind him, leaned over his shoulder until he can see Web’s sketched copy of the painting, one of Raphael’s self-portraits, over Webster’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Forgery?” Joe had dabbled in it himself but it was honestly way too much boring detail work for his tastes, he could draw and paint and sculpt well enough in a diverse range of styles but to pass under any sort of real scrutiny meant fiddling about with ageing samples and pigment dating and passing off a fake just didn’t give him the same thrill as slipping past a security system.

“Just appreciating it. I don’t do my own art work,” Webster remarked, “Books sometimes. Though, funny you should mention it. The reason I’m in Venice is because a... contact of mine wanted a middle man to do some fencing for him.”

“A middle man or a fall guy?” Joe enquired. He wasn’t a forger but those he knew rarely involved more people in the process than whole necessary. Sure, Webster was a pro and could make his own business decisions, but that wasn’t going to stop Joe from being concerned.

“He’s an old contact and a reliable one,” Web assured him. “So's the fence. It hardly counts as work at all, my forger friend just prefers to stick to the creating side of things and leave the business to somebody else. Probably because he’s not very good at it.”

Joe raised his eyebrows. So Webster had taken the safest job he could find. “Brokerage, huh. Did you rip him off?”

“No,” Webster said, making a good show of offence. “Well, I overcharged a little, but nothing more than both parties could afford, any more would be bad for business.”

"I'd expect nothing less," Joe declared, giving up his stance to settle on the bench besides Webster.

He looked up at the portrait Web had been studying.

It was an okay painting, despite being one of Raphael's less famous works, the expression lively in a way that made Joe wonder what the story was behind it. Forgery was a foolish guess because Web's idle sketch really isn’t comparable with what was in front of them, but then, Joe was never a fan of copies. Far better a mediocre original with passion behind it than a soulless imitation. But it was clear that Webster admired the work, even if Joe didn’t have a taste for it, he couldn’t deny that the fascination that sat well on Webster’s features. After September, Webster had worn apathy a little too often and easily for Joe’s tastes and Joe’s suspicion that Web’s indifference was an act hadn’t soothed him any. Today, Webster looked more like the cocky, ambitious schemer he’d been when he stole Joe’s attention.

Joe wanted to keep that look on Webster’s face.

Impulsive heists were how arrogant thieves got caught.

But Joe was so very good at what he did.

“It would be much easier to study it somewhere with better light,” he observed.

Webster rolled his eyes. “By all means, make a complaint to the curator.”

“Or,” Joe said, leaning close to press his lips to Webster’s ear. “We could take matters into our own hands.” Webster might not have been much of a forger but Joe would bet a lot that he had a studio somewhere, if only for fun, and though Joe hadn’t seen it he didn’t doubt the Raphael would look better there.

Joe watched the thoughts flicker across Webster’s face. The way he leaned back, an idle stretch that let him casually case the room’s security, did such things to Joe’s stomach.

"How could we split one painting?" Webster said.

"Oh, you could keep it," Joe said. Fuck. If anybody needed evidence that he was too far gone, those words coming from his mouth would be it. Sure, his primary motivation for stealing had been the act itself for a long time, but that had never meant he'd been indifferent as to the pay-out. But he didn’t give a damn about the portrait, what he wanted was the smile the painting put on Webster’s face.

Webster shook his head. "No. How about... if we're hitting here anyway, there must be something you'd like."

Joe glanced around the room. There was nothing there with noteworthy resale value and in truth he wasn’t personally partial to renaissance portraiture, too many saints to interest him and he always ended up thinking about ninja turtles if he dwelt on them too long. “Nothing is grabbing my attention enough to be worth the trouble of transporting," he said honestly. It just wasn’t worth the effort to hoard art he didn't even like.

"Oh, come on," Webster laughed. "Remember who you're talking to. There's no need to play innocent with me. You must want something."

Of course Joe did, but it wasn't hanging on these walls. There was nothing like the high of a job well done except for getting to share that high, and the Maserati Joe had driven here might not fall into super-car territory but he was sure they could make do. “I could use the exercise,” he said instead.

Webster gave him a long look, then seemed to realise that Joe was serious. He tucked his pencil into his pocket and folded his sketch-pad shut. “Okay,” he said. “But we probably shouldn’t talk about this here.”

“I have a hotel room,” Joe offered. Normally he’d wait and see if a prospective partner offered, to let him keep a private bolt hole if the job went bad, but this was Webster and Joe wasn’t paying a small fortune a night for champagne in the mini-bar, a jacuzzi tub, and a king-sized bed with silk sheets to let those luxuries go to waste.

“Is it far?”

“I can drive you, I’m parked out back.”

And if it was a chance to see what Webster made of the Maserati and if he still had his thing for supercars, well that was Joe’s business.

 

*

 

They planned the job mostly in bed, Joe still sprawled out on the messy sheets even after Web moved to lounge on the couch, pen in hand because apparently if he was given the opportunity he was the type of guy who took notes.

“A little place like that, the security can’t be up to much,” he mused.

Joe rolled his eyes. “Did you have to jinx it?”

“I can go back tomorrow and take a closer look. The staff think I’m an art student and they’re used to me enough that they aren’t constantly watching to make sure I don’t try and touch the paintings or anything.” Webster said it like him trashing the place was such an absurd thing to worry about and it made Joe want to point out that only one of them had once taken a knife to multi-million-dollar pieces because it was faster than removing the canvas from the frame properly and only one person he’d ever met had set fire to an arguably priceless collection of art and antiquities out of pure spite. He kept his mouth shut though. Pissing off Web could be fun, but, like all of the best things he pulled off, the trick to success was in the timing.

“Okay, you go in and check out the security and how to get the painting out the building. I’ll get the lay of the area, make sure we’ve got a couple of good exit routes, just in case there is any trouble.”

Webster nodded. “It’s low season for tourists, that’ll help. It’ll be getting it out of the country that’ll be tricky. Big airports are always on the lookout for smugglers—”

“So go through a private airfield.” There were plenty of old guys with stories about plane jobs on big airlines, but that was in the days when airport security was mostly about large-scale import/export and everybody thought they could be the next DB Cooper. These days charter flights were how their business ran. Honestly, Webster had to be smarter than this usually or he’d have never lasted as long as he had in the business. Maybe the champagne was dulling his sense. Or, Joe thought with a smirk, maybe it was the endorphins.

“If I could travel by private jet whenever I needed I would,” Webster said. “But I don’t exactly keep a private plane on standby, and any respectable charter firm is going to want more documentation than I’d planned for this trip.”

Well, Joe had been thinking about stealing one rather than hiring one, but he supposed kidnapping a pilot to go along with it was probably more complication than they needed. He really needed to hurry up and learn to fly so he could spare himself that trouble. Webster could probably seduce somebody into loaning him a plane and a crew, but Joe doesn’t suggest that. It’s not that he thinks whatever has been going on between them has changed how Webster works, it’s not even that he strongly objects to it, the people Web uses don’t matter, but it was one thing to know that Web was swanning around the world stealing hearts and off-shore bank accounts while Joe was busy with his own shit and another for it to happen under his nose.

“I think the waterways are our best option,” Webster said.

“Oh, spare me the tourist trap crap,” Joe scoffed. “I have been to Venice before.” Paying somebody to punt them down the canal was all very well and good for gullible visitors who’d never get closer to culture, but it wasn’t an efficient way to get around on the job. “And how would that solve the problem of getting the painting back into the States?”

“Are you seriously suggesting we disregard the canals? It’s Venice!”

“So? They’re mostly full of trash,” Joe pointed out. “And anyway, there are cities with more.”

Webster looked incredulous. “Where?”

“Birmingham.”

“Birmingham, England? Or Alabama?”

“England.” Obviously. “Since when is Alabama knows for its canals?”

Webster rolled his eyes. “Well I’ve never exactly made a study of it. How do you even know that?”

“I read it.”

“In a book?”

It had been an internet list about little known travel facts he’d read while bored and stuck in Istanbul for a week after his flight plans had been fucked up by that stupid Icelandic volcano eruption. Webster didn’t need to know that though. “Whatever. A gondola cruise is not a good getaway plan.”

“I was thinking more a yacht waiting in the bay, actually. A day rental would need less paperwork, since they’d think we were planning on just taking a look around and bringing it back,” Webster explained. “But Venice opens out onto the Adriatic. The issue is getting the painting past EU border checks but in a boat we could skim down the coast, take it out through Montenegro or Albania where the checks aren’t as centralised and it’s easier to slip through.”

“You’re over-complicating,” Joe complained. “That seriously can’t be how you’ve got things out of Europe in the past.”

“Normally I have a bigger window of opportunity so I can prep my travel plans in advance,” Webster said. “But the gallery is closed for all of January for a big overhaul to their collection. We take it fast or we don’t take it at all. And I don’t want to hang-about in Venice with a hot painting once we have it.”

It was always kind of annoying when Web was reasonable. Still, “Getting out Venice doesn’t necessarily mean we have to get the painting back to the states right away. I’ve got a few places you could leave it until the heat has died down enough to make it easy to move, or you can get plans in place to move it discreetly.” Or it could just stay at one of Joe’s safe-houses and Webster could visit it whenever he wanted, but he was pretty sure if he suggested that Webster would take it to mean that Joe wanted the painting for himself and was just being indirect about it, when that wasn’t the case at all.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Webster said. “The painting is nice but I’m not sure it’s worth the risk of a rushed job.”

Joe scoffed. “We’ve got five days. I—” broke into a shady chemical lab, stole weapon plans, and rescued Webster from his kidnappers in less than that time, but he wasn’t sure how well Webster would take him bringing up those days he had spent in captivity “—We planned our take-down of deVere in that kind of time-frame and there’s no way this museum’s security matches up to his. Stop worrying so far ahead. Tomorrow we get the layout, and we can move from there. Now come back to bed.”

 

*

 

Venice in the winter was brutally cold. Joe had known that in the abstract, but the last two days had been mild, and he hadn't been prepared for the bitter winds to sweep in. If he had, he'd have fought harder with Web to call dibs on the part of the job that involved lounging around inside a nice heated museum.

Instead, Joe was skulking in alleyways with his coat collar flipped up in a meagre defence against the intermittent bouts of hail as he attempted to map out the maze of back streets, all to steal a painting he'd never have looked twice at had it not been for who he'd found admiring it.

The whole area around the museum was a maze of illogical alley-ways and passages, back-streets cutting across places logic said should be blocked and cul-de-sacs where thoroughfares should be. Joe was never sure if he loved or hated historic city layouts. They would either make the perfect place to hide or the perfect trap to be backed into. The streets were sufficiently hard to memorise that Joe had ended up ditching his original recon and traipsing across the city until he found an internet cafe that was open, printing a map of the area off, and then going back to repeat his survey of the area with a marker in hand to correct on the hard copy all of the places the streets didn’t match up to the map.

Even after a day of walking the streets Joe still felt like it would be dangerously easy to misjudge the twisting back ways and end up cornered, and as he made his way back to the hotel he hoped like hell that Webster would have discovered that the museum’s security was non-existent and that they could just walk out of the main entrance with the painting and bypass the labyrinthine side streets altogether.

They weren’t that lucky.

Joe wasn’t unlucky either though.

Webster had beat him back to the hotel and had discovered the tub’s jets, and he’d hit a shop at some point during the day and acquired bubble bath, which Joe was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to combine with jets, but he wasn’t going to complain. It was enough to distract from the planning for a while.

Webster’s report on the museum security was simple. It wasn’t anything impressive, everything he had seen Joe was sure he could bypass with minimal prep, but nor was it going to make anything too easy for them. They’d still need speed and stealth, and Joe still hadn’t come up with a way to get the painting out of the city once they’d taken it.

“Do you think it’s too much trouble? This isn’t my kind of job,” Webster admitted. “There’s no obvious human vulnerability, the best angle would be to go in as one of the people involved in the transfer but as far as I can tell none of the paintings are being moved internationally and my Italian isn’t good enough to pass myself off as working for a local gallery. This is only going to work if you have plan and it’s probably be you doing most of the legwork.”

Joe waved an arm dismissively, sending bubbles sloshing over the side of the tub, but given how much water they’d already spilt he supposed a little more didn’t matter.

“Too much trouble? Chicago was too much trouble, and—” no, he wasn’t going to bring up September’s shit-show while Webster was this relaxed “—Oxford was a pain in the ass. This is a simple break in and lift, rookie shit, there’s not even specific security on the painting. I mean, you want it, don’t you?”

“Of course, but—”

“No buts,” Joe said. “Maybe none of your cons would cut it here, but it would take more than an outdated alarm system and them padlocking the doors at night to slow me down. You should practise a little more honest thievery Web, it might be good for you.”

Webster laughed, the water rippling around them both. “Only if you teach me, and make it as interesting as the handcuff lessons.”

Joe hummed. Most of the skills of old fashioned breaking and entering and safe-cracking weren’t as easily adapted to personal amusements as handcuffs were, but those lessons had come in useful and more couldn’t hurt. Joe was sure he could think of some way to make practising classic crime skills fun, even if Webster didn’t get the pleasure he did out of the acts themselves, and Webster was an entertaining student when he wasn’t being a know-it-all brat. “We’ve got four days before the collection moves, yeah?”

Web nodded.

“Well then,” Joe said, pushing himself up out of water. “You’re right that it’ll be me doing the planning, but that’s plenty of time for me to teach you enough for you to make the grab.”

“What?”

Joe grabbed one of the complimentary robes off the hook and tossed it in Webster’s direction. “C’mon Web. You’re going to break into a museum.”

 

*

 

Although as far as Joe could tell all of Webster’s own crimes were variants on the same two basic plays: 1) charm his mark into simply giving him what he wanted or letting him past their defences, or 2) overwhelm the mark with his air of privilege and entitlement until they were too cowed to question whether he actually had the authority he claimed; he did have the basic technical skills to back his cons up. Mostly Joe was teaching him shortcuts and encouraging him to get the practise he needed to be fast enough to work a real job. And it was surprisingly fun to watch him work on the cheap hotel safe, one Joe could have busted open in under a minute, even if he hadn’t been able to think of any way to liven it up except for incentives if Web worked efficiently enough.

Webster listened, as Joe explained his way through the basic flaws of common security systems, and didn’t try and poke holes in Joe’s explanations except to occasionally point out places where technical flaws interacted interestingly with human security flaws.

Joe knew he was good, had always known it, he wouldn’t be doing what he did if he weren’t the best of the best, but the admiration and having Webster’s fixed attention as he talked through cracking an alarm was still an excellent stroke for his ego.

It was no surprise to Joe that Web was a quick study, and he let himself fantasise about all the ways in which they could work together if Web kept honing the skills Joe was imparting, used them in combination with his knack for talking his way into places he shouldn’t be.

But for now, they had a painting to steal.

 

*

 

Three days was nowhere near long enough to teach Webster what he’d need to hit a museum on his own, but it was enough Joe felt confident letting him loose for a little field practise since Joe would be sticking close and ready to take over if anything went wrong.

They spent most of the day of the 31st in bed, alternating between napping in preparation for potentially being up all night and Joe distracting Webster from any nagging doubts he had about being the one to do the breaking in.

Dinner was eaten on the balcony at dusk, watching the sun set over the city as Webster insisted on reciting every step of the plan while Joe rolled his eyes and assured him that he had nothing to worry about. In principle, Web’s caution at approaching the job was sensible but, given that Joe would be watching his back and had the skills to clean out a little museum like that with one hand behind his back, Webster’s fuss over the details was redundant.

They approached the museum just after half past ten, late enough that the museum was sure to be deserted but early enough that the streets weren’t flooded with people celebrating the new year, as well as leaving enough time that they could do the job without Webster feeling rushed. Of course, typically all break-ins came with time pressure, but Joe had decided that, given it was Webster’s first time, ensuring that Web enjoyed it with the minimum of stress was a higher priority than giving him the full experience of running a break-in.

Joe was dressed in his typical black, but Webster had needed to settle for a navy shirt and black jacket because there were no black shirts in his luggage. They idled their way up to the museum door; creating the illusion of casually belonging wherever he stood was one department in which Webster needed no instruction.

Joe leaned against one of the pillars keeping a casual lookout as he watched Webster pick the lock on the front door. He was still slow, though he’d improved as much as he could have given he’d had only a few days practise having been only a casual student of the art before, but after a few minutes and several unsuccessful attempts he tried the handle and it turned.

Webster glanced over in his direction and Joe rolled his eyes. He was willing to walk Webster through this but he wasn’t going to hold his hands and repeat every step of the plan. Webster was smarter than that.

The door creaked a little as Web pushed it open but it wasn’t like there was anybody around to notice the noise and Joe meandered over. “You’ve got this,” he said, when Webster hesitated. He’d done it just fine in the hotel room, it wasn’t even difficult really, as long as Web remembered which wire he needed to pull and how to find it without looking.

The museum had motion sensors and an alarm, but in order to prevent the thing sounding off and disturbing the whole neighbourhood every time they open up in the morning the area immediately inside the doorway wasn’t covered by any sensors.

You could only get a few steps inside the building, but those few steps put a guy (or, Joe supposed, a tall enough woman) in the perfect position to reach up overhead and loosen the cover on the alarm, feel a way through the cables, and pull the two wires that would simultaneously disconnect the motion sensors and the power to the back-up alarm that was supposed to go off in case of the main alarm disconnecting.

Webster fumbled the case, but he had it open quick enough, frowning as he groped around in the box. “I can only feel one wire,” he muttered.

“Feel around properly,” Joe said. Installation quirks weren’t uncommon, there would always be minor differences between set-ups and a good thief knew how to work with those, but the second wire should definitely be there. “Check all the corners.”

“Joe, I’m sure!” he said sharply. “There’s nothing else to pull.”

Well… there were two options. One, they could back out; or two, Web could pull the wire anyway. Joe considered for a moment, “Pull the one you have.”

“What, but you said…”

“I talked you through the basics. But rule number one is expect the unexpected and roll with the changes. Worst case, our escape plan is solid but we have to leave without the painting. Pull it anyway.”

“I feel like that’s two rules,” Webster grumbled, then yanked the wire.

Nothing happened.

Joe grinned.

Webster stared at him. “How did you know that would work?” he said. “You said this type of alarm had a backup and I couldn’t find the back-up wire—”

“It does. But this is an old building,” Joe explained. “It probably has power outages or the breakers tripped every time the cleaners try to plug in the vacuum while the curator is using a computer at the same time.”

“So the alarm…?”

“So, every time that happened, the back-up alarm in case of a power outage would go off. Imagine that happening two or three times a week and—”

“—They disconnected their own back-up to avoid the trouble.” Webster looked incredulous, but Joe didn’t see why. After all, half of Web’s own methods relied others being complacent, so that it extended to other areas was surely the logical conclusion.

There was no other active security though they both kept their heads turned to avoid the handful of cameras scattered haphazardly, until they came to the Raphael.

There was no masking Webster’s enthusiasm as he lifted it down from the wall, Joe might not care for the painting itself but he understood very well the glee of finding just the right addition to a personal collection. There was no knife this time, not for a painting Web actually valued. He removed it carefully from the wall and set to separating the canvas from its frame with a caution that any art restorer would be satisfied with, even if the tools had been cobbled together from what he found in Venice’s markets during a quiet part of the year.

Once the painting was freed, Webster rolled it with caution and slipped it into the tube they’d brought along with them. Joe had been hesitant at the suggestion of rolling something so old and the risk of cracking the paint, but Webster had deemed it in good enough condition to withstand a little manhandling, and anyway it would have been way too much extra complication to move it flat.

 When this was done, Webster handed the tube over to Joe. Walking out of the front door of a closed museum carrying a painting would look just a little too suspicious, but somebody needed to make sure the front was properly shut up behind them, and Joe figured it would be good for Webster to be able to carry off at least one element of the heist without having Joe to turn to for help.

He hung the frame back on the wall as Webster made his way out front to deal with the door. There was no function to rehanging the frame, but as a connoisseur of art Joe could appreciate visual impact and the empty frame hanging on the wall looked far better than a blank space and the frame dumped haphazardly on the floor. He didn’t want whoever discovered the theft to think that they’d been robbed by amateurs.

With the frame back in place, Joe tucked the painting under his arm and made his way over to the side-door he’d selected for his exit route.

He pushed open the fire escape and then stopped short, face to face with a group of women.

Shit.

They were clearly revellers, wearing short dresses and high heels, they must have been fucking freezing but perhaps they were drunk enough not to notice. They certainly weren't sober, not when the nearest woman grabbed Joe by the shirt leaning way too close as she slurred, "Scusami, ou es la festa?" one said, in a broken attempt at Italian.

He shook his head, edging around the group. "Mi dispiace, sono americano," he muttered, making sure his pronunciation hit just the right balance as to be comprehensible without being so good as to suggest he actually knew any more Italian than could be found on page one of a guidebook. Pretending not to speak the language was frequently a convenient shortcut to having all manner of rude and erratic behaviour written off as simply the ignorance of a tourist.

One of the women at the back, perhaps a touch more sober than the others was staring at him though. "Attendez,” she said to the woman beside her, “Ce bâtiment est un musée. Pour quelle raison est un Américain ici la nuit?" and French had never been one of Joe's stronger languages, but he knew enough to piece the gist of the words together. He took a deep breath. Running would only make him more suspicious. But the others were looking at him now, sharper than they’d been a moment before. Dressed all in black with a toolkit in hand, Joe knew the tourist lie wasn’t going to hold up to much scrutiny. He didn’t think they’d buy that he was just a really drab goth. Shit. If only Webster were here. He could probably just smile at them and have them all too busy giggling to even question his motives.

Joe looked at their shoes.

Fuck it.

Shouldering past them, he set off down the alley at a sprint. They might scream, they’d almost certainly call the cops, but there was no way they’d be able to chase him.

He careened down the alleyway, setting a heap of trash cans clattering when he tried to leap over them and only sort of succeeded, making it to his and Webster’s meeting place in a half the anticipated time.

Webster’s eyes widened when he saw Joe running. “You’ve been made,” he said, not a question.

“Drunk tourists,” Joe explained. “But they were suspicious. We should clear the area.” There were parked cars nearby and he pulled off his jacket, wrapping it around his hand in preparation, but then Webster grabbed him by the bicep. "You cannot be stupid enough to do what it looks like you're about to do.”

Joe resisted a groan of frustration. Webster was so picky. “What’s the problem now?”

"It might have an alarm. And we're certainly gonna look suspicious driving around with a smashed window.”

"Who's really going to be paying that much attention?”

"This isn't some sketchy backwater," Webster pointed out. "It's Venice. And New Year’s Eve. Surely you've spotted the barricades, they're not just on the lookout for crime, they’re looking for terrorists and driving around the tourist areas with a smashed in window is bound to get us stopped, or worse."

"I can out drive them," Joe insisted. He had no illusions of it being a great plan, but they had to get out of here somehow.

"We’re not getting in a car chase in the city centre on New Year’s Eve,” Webster said. “There are drunks staggering everywhere, we'd be sure to run somebody down!"

"Fuck!" Webster was right about that. Joe wasn't sure exactly where the Italians stood on vehicular manslaughter other than general disapproval but he wasn't keen to find out. He shrugged his jacket back on. "But we can't stay here!"

It was one of the risks of the job, there would always be contingencies that you couldn't plan for, nobody was untouchable, but if Joe went down because a bunch of drunk women with no sense of direction accidentally wandered down a dead end and into his crime scene his professional reputation would be permanently damaged.

“I have an idea,” Webster said, pulling Joe away from the car and the leading him down one of the side streets.

It wasn’t like Joe had any ideas of his own, so Joe followed easily enough for a moment or two, then he realised the direction was leading him. "Oh for—, are you still pushing your stupid boat plan, really?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Webster snapped.

Joe sighed. He still didn't rate their odds of getting out that way, Venice had security on the waterways too, but at least it would put some space between them and where they'd been spotted and buy them some time. "I don't know how to hot-wire a boat," he pointed out. "It's not exactly something that comes up often."

“Not a problem,” Webster said, and two streets later they were by the side of one of the smaller branching canals. Joe walked right over to the nearest boat, but Web shook his head and dragged him back. "No, not that one.”

"No?"

"If we're going to do this, we're doing it right," Webster said haughtily, walking past several more boats.

"We're on the run from the cops with a five-hundred-year-old painting, and you're choosing now to be fussy?"

"I'm choosing what I'll need to make this work,” Webster says. “There has to be something up to scratch along here, I’ll know it when I see it.”

They walked two full blocks, Webster dismissing plenty of boats that looked perfectly seaworthy to Joe’s eyes before he finally came to a stop. "This one," he declared, jumping easily from the pavement into the boat. "Untie her from the mooring, I'll get her started."

Her. Jesus. Joe hadn't realised that Webster was that stupid about boats. He pulled the knots loose easily, they were sloppily tied, then Joe flopped down into the leather seat as Webster hunched over the controls, drumming his fingers on the painting's case and waiting. Two minutes. He was counting down from one-hundred and twenty and if Webster couldn't get the boat started in that time then they were dropping this plan and Joe would have to improvise.

One-hundred and ten.

Webster was cursing quietly to himself, and Joe wanted to tell him to just give it up if he didn't think he could do it but he also know how much it pissed him off when somebody interrupted his focus when he was working a lock and he doubted that Webster's lack of expertise would make him any more amenable to commentary.

One-hundred.

Webster was finishing through his pockets, pulling out one of those plastic fob loyalty cards and snapping it in two.

Ninety.

Webster ducked down, fidgeted with something, and then muttered a victorious, “Ha!”

Eighty-four.

The engine roared to life, and Webster tossed a grin over his shoulder at Joe. "Isn't that just one of the most beautiful sounds you ever heard?"

Joe rolled his eyes. "Go."

Webster went.

It was less impressive than it should have been.

"I thought this was a speedboat," Joe complained, as they pulled away at a sedate thirty miles per hour. "Can't we go a little faster?"

"Not without drawing attention," Webster said, waving jauntily to the driver a tour-boat passing in the other direction. "We'll get further making this look like a casual pleasure cruise than we will by gunning it and having the polizia on our asses in minutes."

"Whatever."

They sailed for another five minutes, Webster going ostentatiously slowly and making a grand show of pointing out various buildings and features in a way that made Joe suspect that he was quite enjoying playing tourist, (though he couldn’t quite tell if Web was getting stuff wrong as part of the act or if he was really that clueless about architecture) when they were interrupted by a voice over loudspeaker. "IT-AAU00042-D3-16 il tuo veicolo è stato segnalato nei nostri archivi. Accostare."

"Fuck," Webster muttered. "Whoever owns her must have spotted that she was missing and called a description and the craft identification number in."

"Hey, they're yelling in Italian, and honestly that number meant nothing to me," Joe said. "We can always milk the confused tourist thing a little longer."

"No, we can't," Webster said. "See up ahead, it widens out. If we don't pull over then they'll try and get ahead of us and block us off instead."

"So what do we do?" Joe asked. This was Webster's plan after all.

"We make sure they don't get ahead of us," Webster said firmly. "You might want to hold on."

A roar of engines later, and Joe finally understood why they called them speedboats.

Webster abandoned all pretence of a tourist jaunt, sending a wall of water spraying up behind them as he gunned the engine and pulled them away, the sound of the motor drowning out the officers still yelling in their wake.

They were fast enough to get past the wide section and into another narrow straight ahead of the cops, nobody would be cutting them off there, but as they pulled out of that stretch Joe had a sinking feeling of too fast, as they hit another stretch busy with tourist boats.

“Jesus, Web! It doesn’t count as a successful escape if the reason we aren’t arrested is because you crash and we fall into the canal and die!” he cried, as they came so close to a tourist barge that Joe would be surprised if they hadn’t scraped the paintwork.

Webster jerked his head around to stare at Joe. “Can you not swim?!”

“Of course I can, that’s not the point,” Joe yelled, knowing how to swim wouldn’t meant shit if he broke every bone in his body in the collision. “This water is filthy though, and it’s overkill, we’re way ahead of them,” he pointed out.

“Ahead of them, but if they’re even halfway competent then they’ll call for backup,” Webster said, turning back to the controls and spinning them out of the thoroughfare and into one of the smaller tributaries in way that made the right side of the boat —port? starboard? were those words even relevant on a boat this small? Joe shook his head and decided he didn’t care— lurch perilously out of the water like maybe it might flip.

They coursed down the waterways and Joe held his breath through what felt like a hundred near-misses but every time Webster swerved just right or put on a burst of speed to get them clear, and kept it so that while Joe kept seeing flashes of red and blue lights and hearing the distant wails of sirens the cops never got close.

An old associate had once taught Joe that the trick to shaking a tail was to drive like an idiot - it was an easy way to identify who was following you and the unpredictability meant sooner or later they'd fail to anticipate a wild turn and lose you. It turned out that in a boat Webster was a natural at it.

Over the growl of the engine, Joe heard the sound of church-bells, dozens of them both near and distant, and he glanced down at his watch.

23:59

He counted the chimes and on the twelfth he couldn’t resist, tugging Webster’s head around until he could brush their lips together. It was only a momentary kiss, more tender than passionate, but Joe knew they couldn’t afford for him to be a distraction at these speeds, Web was a surprisingly good sailor but the water was still crowded with tourist boats and some of the turns they were making were unnervingly sharp.

Still, Joe couldn’t think of a better way to ring in the new year as he pulled back and looked around to see the gap opening up between them and the buildings, the boat no longer in that canals but speeding out onto open water. “We’re out,” Joe gasped. “Shit, I didn’t—”

“Out of the main city,” Webster said. “But we still have to get around the lido. There’s bound to be patrol ships so you might want to sit back down.”

“How do you even know all of this?” Joe couldn’t help but asking. Webster had never hesitated while navigating the canals, and as far as Joe could judge his route had been pretty direct despite the fact he’d avoided the grand canal in favour of the smaller and less populated waterways.

“I’ve always liked Venice,” Webster remarked. “But it’s so hard to find time and I can’t bear the tourist season. That’s why I arranged to have business here in the first place.”

“Hard to find the time?” Joe said. “It’s not like you have a nine to five, what could possibly have been stopping you?”

“It’s… never mind, that’s not the point,” Webster said. “Shush, I need to focus for this part,” Then he promptly pulled them way too close to a towering cruise ship.

Joe screwed his eyes shut, knowing that if he saw how close they got he wouldn’t be able to resist calling out. He waited, counting the seconds and feeling the rush of wind in face, until he heard Webster’s triumphant victory cry and snapped his eyes back open.

Fucking shit but there it was, the sea spreading out ahead of them as far as his eyes could see.

Webster gunned the throttle and Joe twisted in his seat, leaning over the stern as he watched the distance open up between them and the blue and white patrol ships until one by one they dropped the pursuit.

When he turned back Webster was laughing, eyes were bright in the light of the nearly full moon and he looked practically drunk on the thrill of the chase. Fuck. Joe didn’t know how he could ever have believed that Webster was a suit, except for the fact that Web was just that good of a con artist.

Web abandoned the boat’s controls, leaving them to coast out of the bay, and grabbed Joe by the hands, pulling him close, wild and fierce as he said, “They’ll never catch us now.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
> _“So what are you going to tell them?”  
>  “That we’re bank robbers.”_


	9. Episode 9 - Easy Target

**_Columbus, Ohio - May 2018_ **

 

Idleness had never suited Joe. He'd met a lot of guys in the business who treated what they were doing as a way to gain wealth, who planned to retire once they were satisfied with what they'd amassed, but Joe couldn't imagine getting out of the game for anything. Even if he got to one hundred years old, fingers too gnarled and arthritic to pick a lock, eyes too weak to really see the art anymore, he'd find some way of keeping his hand in, teaching up and comers or masterminding and letting other people do the physical work. The job was his life and he’d die doing it. Oh, a few days or a week of downtime could be pleasant, but soon enough Joe's mind would be ticking over with thoughts of potential targets and schemes to stave off the boredom. He could only keep himself busy with small time minor league scores for so long. Pulling the same kinds of jobs over and over got stale fast. Joe needed new challenges, new victories, it wasn’t just playing the game that mattered, it was staying at the top of it.

Of course, he never wanted to be a big name, people who got their names splashed in the papers generally did so because they fucked up and got caught.

A few of his heists had made the papers with references to a mystery perpetrator who got away clean and Joe got some kicks from reading about the rich people spilling their sob stories about how embarrassed they were by having their security systems waltzed through and their valuables stolen right out from under them.

But there was also something to be said for a lift so smooth that the target never even knew they’d been hit and that was what he had in mind as he mulled over the schematics for the Columbus branch of First Regional Community Bank.

He wasn’t interested in the cash vaults, there wasn’t nothing exciting about duffel-bags full of money and large stacks of bills were cumbersome and harder to offload than most people realised, but FRC also had one of the biggest collections of safety deposit boxes in the world.

And safety deposit boxes were fun.

They were like a lucky dip of neglected secret treasures. Some of the boxes would probably contain boring stuff but there was bound to be something worth having lurking down there, things that might never even be missed because, instead of appreciating their treasures, the owners had locked them away in a dusty old bank.

It was almost charitable of him really, saving what was hidden down there from tragic neglect.

Of course, bank jobs were always particularly difficult. Banks expected to be targeted to a degree that private collectors didn’t, because everybody knew where they were and that they had something to steal whereas many private collectors had discretion as their first line of defence. Worse, banks were public, which meant that for ten hours a day they were virtually untouchable, at least to him — Joe didn’t do risking bystanders being caught up in the middle of his jobs, not if there were any other options.

But as soon as Skinny had ‘stumbled’ across the top-secret version of the buildings blue-prints containing all the security flaws that were censored on the public record version, Joe had his heart set on those deposit boxes.

He’d been pouring over the plans for days, and now he was ready to get started with the real preparations. He could solo it. He’d got three-quarters of a plan to hit it alone. That was how he’d always operated: no risk of backstabbing, or fighting over the take, or things getting messed up by other people’s plain and simple incompetence.

But some jobs were easier with a front man…

Webster was in Aruba and had been keeping Joe updated on how he was charming some incredibly rich old lady into writing him into her will, which he insisted was hardly a crime at all because if her grandchildren had stepped up and took her out to dinner and admired her gardening every once in a while then she wouldn’t be so eager for Webster’s attention and they wouldn’t have to worry about him getting the inheritance they were assuming was coming to them. Webster had a whole network of lonely retirees who wanted nothing more than the occasional postcard and a nice young man to have tea with them and listen to them talk about their hobbies when he was in town and in return Webster received regular care packages and access to a whole catalogue of vacations homes when he needed to lay low and maybe a cut of their fortunes when they finally croaked. His favourite was a Mrs. Doyle who Web claimed had three gangster ex-husbands and had spotted his game from the start but played along because she found him amusing.

It seemed his target in Aruba was either not so interesting or not so rich, because when Joe invited him to Ohio Web offered to be on the next flight out.

Joe had safe house close enough to the bank that he’d been staying at his own place while he prepped. Once Webster’s participation was confirmed he weighed up briefly the practically of renting a cheap, anonymous apartment for them to work out of, then decided fuck it and dug out his tools. He could afford to burn one safe-house if it came to it, and honestly, well, he didn’t think that would be a problem with Webster.

 

*

 

Web arrived in a pea-coat and dragging a suitcase so big that Joe rolled his eyes because, sure Webster’s fancy dress sense could come in handy, but it wasn’t like he’d dragged Webster that far out into the sticks. They were in a city, he could have bought clothes, instead of brought them. Joe had decided he quite liked Webster looking all proper and polished when he was playing a part —it made it all the sweeter that he knew what was underneath both the lies and the linens— but that didn’t change the fact he was overdressed. Webster didn’t seem concerned though. He discarded his over-sized case in the hall and settled on Joe’s couch and despite the fact he didn’t blend in at all with his surroundings Web looked perfectly at home in a way that made Joe’s chest clench despite the fact that Webster was one of those people who looked annoyingly at home _wherever_ he went, as he waited for Joe to give him a proper run down on his scoop.

“I have the schematics,” he explained, rolling the plans out for Web to study. “But I know there’s been renovations since these were drawn up, we could use an updated version, I’ve been in to cash a check and I can see changes to the main hall but I don’t know how far down those go, getting a full tour would be best.”

“You want me to go in as somebody who’d get the full VIP treatment?” Webster guessed. “Is that why you invited me?”

No. He could find a way to get it himself if he were willing to be patient. He’d invited Web because he wanted Webster around. And not just because there was limited satisfaction in being a genius without an audience. But it was hardly professional to say so. “Exactly,” he said, only half a lie, because he did want Webster to do that, it just wasn’t his main motivation. “I was thinking obscure European royalty, really dazzle them.”

Webster shook his head. “Not with my accent.”

“You can’t fake it?” Joe had assumed that sort of thing would be right up his street.

Webster shrugged. “Fake accents are okay to confuse somebody for a few minutes, but go on too long and sooner or later it’ll always slip.”

“Okay, a rich American,” he conceded. “Oil heir or something.”

Webster frowned, looking unpersuaded. “I’m not sure I have an identity on hand that could hold up to any in depth scrutiny. I make people feel like they don’t need to check my credentials but I’m not sure that would work with a bank. What if they try to impress their prospective VIP with their thoroughness?”

“We need to look inside,” Joe insisted. The blueprints were enough to draw him in, but making a move based on twenty-year-old plans would just be careless and he’d have to scrap the whole idea if he couldn’t get confirmation that the parts his plan hinged on hadn’t been too altered.

“Oh, that won’t be hard,” Webster said. “I’m just not sure rich VIP is the right move. It grabs a lot of attention. There are times for that, but banks aren’t easily dazzled.”

“So, what do you suggest?”

“What about a student?” Joe wrinkled his nose, but Webster waved a hand. “No, hear me out. An architecture student, it’s a significant enough building. With the right references, drop in the name of a prestigious college with alumni you might mention them to, you could get them to give you a good tour but it would also be a lot harder for them to prove you aren’t who you say you are.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but, “Wait, you want me to be the fake student?”

“You know more about how banks are built than I do,” Webster points out. “You’d be more convincing and make more useful observations. And it means I’m still in reserve if we need to run a proper con later.”

“Aren’t I kind of old to be a student?”

“Architecture is a long course of study,” Webster dismissed. “I’m not suggesting you try and pretend you’re an eighteen-year-old undergrad.”

“Still, me? A student of somewhere fancy enough that the bank will just open up their doors?”

“It doesn’t really matter how you look, it should be an easy sell with the right references and spoofing up an email isn’t hard,” Webster said. “But if you want to dress up…”

There was a look of enthusiasm in his eyes as he sized Joe up that Joe wasn’t sure he trusted. But Webster was already standing. “I passed a mall on the cab ride on the way in,” he announced. “I can go get some stuff for you to try.”

“I really don’t think—”

“No, it’s a good idea actually. Sometimes props just get in the way but I think it will at least help you figure out your character.”

“I’m not dressing up,” Joe snapped.

There was a long pause, as Webster stared at Joe in shock and then he started to laugh. “Your face,” he blurted out.

Joe blinked. “You were joking?”

“Of course,” Webster said. “The best lies are just the truth twisted around. The more that’s made up, the easier it is to slip up. You don’t want to pretend to be somebody else, you want to be you but an architecture student. But I will need some materials to fake up a student I.D, unless you have—?”

“No, nothing for I.D’s here,” Joe admitted.

“Okay, well it shouldn’t take more than about an hour, are you staying in?” Webster asked. “I’m guessing you don’t want me trying to pick your locks.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Joe said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the key he’d cut when Webster had decided to come. “It’s easier if you can come and go as you please.”

Webster stared.

Joe looked down at the key in his hand, and oh, yeah there were a few metal fillings still clinging to it, he blew them free and then held the key out to Web.

“I…”

“Jeez, Web, hurry up and take it,” Joe snapped.

Webster took the key like Joe was handing him a grenade with a loose pin. Whatever. It was just about the convenience of the job. Joe wasn’t going to mention that he never so much as gave out the addresses for his safe-houses, and if Webster knew enough about business to guess? Well, from the look on his face, he wasn’t going to be saying anything about it either. Giving Webster the key was one thing, acknowledging that it wasn’t because he had a problem with Webster trying out his mediocre lock-picking abilities on Joe’s front door would mean crossing a line and putting himself in a position from which it would be hard to retreat.

 

*

 

Webster whipped up the fake I.D easily enough, but it admitted it was going to take him a couple of days to arrange things with the bank's customer relations department and feign a realistic correspondence between the bank, 'Joseph Prince', and the 'professor' supporting his project and providing his references.

They weren't bored.

Annoyingly, however, they weren't the fun kind of not bored. Well, not more than two or three times a day anyway.

Joe was still spending a few hours a day studying the schematics of the building and those around it, making sure he knew them all inside out and there were no details that might trip him up, and Webster spent a lot of time very focused on his laptop, working on something that was a mystery up until he dumped a slim but stuffed ring-binder in Joe's lap.

Joe flipped it open. “Woah…” Webster had pages and pages of print outs, profiles of the bank employees, screen shots of Facebook and twitter pages, all covered in notes and highlights. “You do this much research before all your cons?”

“I’m pretty good at cold reading people,” Webster said. “But if I know in advance who I’m dealing with and those people happen to have plastered their lives all over social media then of course I use it.”

"Are you expecting me to learn all of this?" Joe said incredulously.

Webster rolled his eyes. "You don’t need to have it all perfect, you're only going in for a few hours and you're supposed to be somebody wholly unconnected to them so it's not essential, but being able to remember names the 'first' time you're told them and just happening to mention having things in common with whoever they get to give you the tour, well, people never suspect the ones that they like because it would make them feel like bad judges of character."

Joe shut the folder.

"I've seen you do this on a total stranger with zero warning," he pointed out. “And that was for far more high stakes stuff than a tour. All I have to do is show a student I.D and look interested — easy.”

Anyway, it seemed like Webster was over-complicating things, Joe didn't know who he'd be speaking to and if he tried to remember details about everybody he'd probably only get them mixed up.

Webster pulled a face, putting the folder on the table with a slight huff when Joe handed it back to him. "Well, they answered the last email and offered Friday," Webster said. "But if that's too soon then I can--"

"Friday is fine," Joe said. All he needed to do was smile and go along with the tour while taking mental notes on the security without doing anything patently stupid like forgetting the fake surname he was using. It would be the easiest bit of casing he'd done in a long time.

 

*

 

Friday was not fine.

Oh, it had started well enough. Joe polished up into a plausible looking architecture student just using what was already in his closet and with minimal styling input from Webster.

He’d arrived at the bank five minutes early for his appointment and had been greeted enthusiastically by the bank manager who claimed to be so flattered that his little branch had caught the eye of a real architect “of course, everybody who works here knows it’s a lovely building, but it’s so nice to have it appreciated,”, and Joe had even manged to remain politely neutral as he was ushered through security without so much as a pat down. And biting back the sarcastic comment was hard. He wasn’t a stick-up kind of guy, but if he’d wanted to, it would apparently be that easy. Now he kind of hoped that they notice their deposit boxes had been ransacked, because honestly the absence of security was a little pathetic.

Bullshitting his way through some chit chat about his area of study was easy enough, Joe did have a pretty keen interest in the ways the architecture could reinforce or undermine the security of a building, and then the tour began.

That was where things started to go wrong.

Joe had never considered himself _bad_ at small talk, it just wasn’t something he bothered with much. He’d figured the tour would mostly be silent observation, perhaps with his guide throwing in a few helpful comments about things Joe might have missed as they walked through halls not usually available to the public.

Instead, he found himself subject to far more information about his guide’s personal life than he’d ever expected and asked a whole bunch of questions to go along with it, like for some reason he was expected to have opinions on the management of pewee soccer teams. Joe did his best to nod along, but it was pretty hard to keep up his end of the tedious conversation and focus on making all the observations he needed.

Clearly, he didn’t cover his distraction as well as he’d like because his guide frowned and said, “Of course, we can cut this tour short if it’s not as interesting as you’d hoped.”

“No, I’m having such a good time.”

“Oh,” she said, which was fair because Joe’s enthusiasm wasn’t well faked. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Fuck. This looked so easy when Webster did it. But assuming he’d find it as easy had been what had got him into this mess. “It’s just that I could really use a smoke y’know. I came in on the bus, didn’t have time to have one before I came in, normally the longest I have to go without is the length of a lecture. Mind if I step outside for a couple of minutes?”

He waited with baited breath, but then the woman rolled her eyes. “Of course,” she said, sounding exasperated but sort of like she was used to it. “I’ll take you out the side door, where the others go, but you’ll have to wait for me to swipe you back in.”

“You’re not staying?” Joe asked. He’d only hoped for a few moments to regroup, not to get this lucky.

“I have asthma,” she sniffed, but she led him outside.

He pulled the slightly crushed pack of Marlboros from his pocket. He hadn’t smoked regularly in years, ashy lungs were a detriment to professional getaways, but he almost always carried a pack because smoking was a convenient cover to justify lurking in back-alleys.

He took a few drags, waiting for the door to seal behind him, then pulled his phone from his pocket.

Webster picked up on the third ring.

“Going well?” he asked, knowingly.

“Would I be calling you if it was?” Joe admitted. “Do you still have that stupid fucking folder?”

“The what?”

“The—” Joe sighed. Of course, Webster would be a bitch about it. “The folder full of very useful and interesting research on the bank staff that you’re now going to use to save my ass?”

“Oh,” Webster said. “ _That_ folder. Sure, I still have that. Who do you need information on?”

“A woman, bottle-blonde with bad roots and those weird frameless glasses,” Joe described.

“You didn’t even get her name?” Webster said with an annoyed huff. “I know you can do better than this, I’ve seen you use covers on jobs before.”

“Covers like delivery drivers and maintenance guys,” Joe pointed out. “Not people who make small talk.”

Webster groaned. “Okay, okay. I got her. Monica Filman, forty-seven, never lived anywhere but Ohio.”

“Okay, how do I use this?” Joe said.

“I’m getting to that,” Webster replied.

“Well, get there faster,” Joe pressed. There would be time later for Webster to make a meal out of the vast quantities of information Joe had dismissed and for Joe to make the slight up to him. “I’ve got away to have a cigarette but somebody else could come out here to smoke anytime.”

“Right, her social media profile is all about her kids, that’s your angle.”

“But this cover doesn’t have kids,” Joe said.

“Make up a cousin or a sibling or something,” Webster said. “Or, the kids are big into sports, she keeps making passive aggressive posts about their team, you could try that approach.”

Joe ground out his cigarette on the brickwork. “Which one? Kids or sports, you’re the expert here.”

“And you’re the guy on the scene,” Webster said. “Throw out a line, see how she reacts and work from there. You’re not trying to talk her into letting you into the vault, just keeping her sweet so you can take your time and maybe pump her for information - you talked Andrew de Vere into a kidnapping, you can do this.”

Joe took a deep breath. He could. He’d let things not going quite as he’d expected throw him off his game but he was better than that.

“Okay,” he said. “Kids and sports. I’ll hedge my bets. Thanks Web.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw the door handle start to turn. “Gotta go.”

A moment later, Monica stepped out, glancing down at where Joe was sliding his phone into his pocket. “Oh, I hope you haven’t been called away to something,” she said, rather insincerely.

“Nah, just a guy on my team,” he said, waving at her to lead him back inside.

“You’re an athlete?” she said, sounding a little doubtful.

“Yeah, probably shouldn’t smoke as much as I do considering, but—” Webster hadn’t mentioned which sports the kids did, but he could hardly go wrong with an American classic, “—there’s a couple of us play baseball, nothing fancy like, but we’ve got a regular schedule of games.”

“Two of mine play softball,” Monica.

“’S a good start, foundation skills and all that. And did you say that—,” she’d mentioned something about some conflict with them, Joe had been listening, but what was it? “—the coach is messing around?”

Monica nodded. “He’s started charging for extra one-on-one coaching sessions and the kids who don’t take them keep getting cut from the team in favour of kids with less talent but more money. I’m worried Piper will be next.”

“Huh. That’s—” how the world always worked, in Joe’s experience, and the sooner that kids learned it the further they’d go in life but he suspected that wasn’t the answer the mom of one of those kids wanted to hear. “Hardly in the spirit of things. Surely at that age it should be all about having fun and taking part.”

Monica hummed. “Well, they should want to win,” she said. “But it should be based on talent.” Though Joe suspect she’d feel differently if she hadn’t deemed her kids naturally talented.

“Of course,” Joe said, mustering his best affable smile, and did his best to pretend he actually gave shit about Michael’s Spanish tutoring, Piper’s soccer, and Penny’s decision to change clarinet lessons to flute (misguided because according to Monica _everyone_ wanted to be flautist and so it wasn’t a marketable skill) for the rest of the tour.

 

*

 

“Fuck. That was bad,” he groaned, as he walked back into his apartment.

“You didn’t get what you need?” Webster called from the kitchen.

Joe shook his head, flopping down on the couch. “No. I got a good look at most of the security, but I’ve also got a headache and I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting invited back.”

There was a pause. “Well, it’s a good thing you don’t need to maintain the cover then, I guess.”

Joe leaned over the back of the couch to look in his direction. “Web?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you set me up to fail so you could make a point?”

There was a pause. Then Webster smiled, slow and wry. “Not really,” he said. “I did think you were the best person to go in, and you were the one who called it easy and decided not to study…”

Webster walked in from the kitchen, plate in hand, and, “Oh, sandwiches, gimme,” Joe demanded, making grabby hands in his direction. That would explain the faint smell of chicken. Webster raised his eyebrows and for a second it looked like Webster was going to hold out on him, which was ridiculous because there was way too much food on the plate for one person to eat. Joe threw up his hands. “Okay, lesson learned. Your little scam artist game isn’t as easy as it looks. Which I knew already, I just wasn’t expecting some random bank lackey to be so uncooperative about giving me a tour that I already had permission for.”

“Maybe you were the one that should have been taking lessons in Venice,” Webster jibed, setting the plate down on the coffee table.

Joe shook his head, grabbing a sandwich. He’d be happily sticking to his own style of crime from now on, it usually served him well enough and if he needed a grifter? Well, he wasn’t planning on losing Webster any time soon.

Sandwich in one hand, he unfurled the plans and took up a pencil with the other, making the necessary amendments to the plans based on what he’d discovered.

It was a mixed bag. Some of the alterations shored up structural weakness, but other bits of modernisation had resulted in convenient security compromises. There was no tidy way to add in mains water, electricity, and internet to a building that pre-dated all three, and stacking renovations on top of renovations invariable resulted in sections of work that were less than ideal from a design perspective but would be perfect for facilitating his entry.

He gnawed on the sandwich, mulling over the changes. His original plan would still work, he decided, with a few alterations to avoid digging through the electric lines.

When he explained that to Webster, Web wrinkled his nose. “Wait, you were serious about the plan being to tunnel in?” he said incredulously.

“Yeah,” Joe said, pointing to the plans spread out on the table. “Look, this whole section of wall is barely a single layer of brick because the building work around it meant adjustments to the foundations and there’s already a tunnel most of the way through because there’s a phone company maintenance shaft that runs right by where we need to break through.”

“But… tunnelling?” Webster repeated.

Joe laughed. “What, afraid to get your hands dirty?”

“Smashing right through a wall seems inelegant,” Webster remarked. “I thought you wanted to do this without anybody even noticing you’d been.”

“We’re not going to bash though it with a sledgehammer,” Joe remarked. “Some precision drilling should get us through the wall and under the vault, then the floor panels unscrew and can be put back in place when we’re done so from the bank side it won’t be obvious how we made it in. The only tricky part will be actually getting through the wall without setting the vibration alarms off.”

“What about setting the alarms off on purpose a few times in advance to get them to drop their guard? I mean, that was why the backup alarm was down in Venice,” Webster suggested.

“I think that’s the plot of an Audrey Hepburn movie,” Joe pointed out. “Anyway, the security here is a bit more serious than that of a no-name backstreet gallery. We’ll just have to be careful with the drilling.”

 

*

 

They waited until Monday night to strike. With the plans in place, they were free to enjoy the weekend and the indulgences allowed by the fact that for the first time they were in a place set up to Joe’s specifications rather than dealing with the limited options presented by a hotel room. It was a strategic choice as well as a fun one, the streets were too busy on weekend nights for them to be able to move without being worried about drunk people stumbling over them again.

Even so, Joe would take point, both because Web didn’t have Joe’s experience handling heavy duty tools and because for the first part they’d be exposed to the street and Webster could do a better job of covering their rear and brushing off anybody who spotted them, although Joe was hoping not that many people would be wandering around at one in the morning.

“If it was day time I’d go with pretending we’re performance art,” Webster mused as Joe unloaded his tools. “Nobody wants to deal with performance artists. But nobody outside of college campuses does performance art on a deserted street in the middle of the night.”

“So, what are you going to tell them?”

“That we’re bank robbers.”

Joe blinked. “I think you’ve slightly missed the point of what I’m asking you to do here…”

Webster shook his head. “Nobody who was actually robbing the bank would just admit to it like that,” he explained, despite the fact he’d just confessed he planned to do exactly that. “Therefore, the moment I say we’re robbing the bank it becomes impossible that we could actually be robbing the bank.”

That… made no sense but Joe shook his head and decided to let it go. Webster was the expert after all. “And if they then ask what we’re really doing?”

“Bachelor party,” Webster said instantly. “Third on the list of most avoided groups after performance artists and 21st birthday parties.”

“Right. Bachelor party of two guys with power tools,” Joe hefted the drill, kneeling down and starting to open up the cover to the maintenance shaft. The sooner they were in, the sooner he could stop wondering if Webster was really planning on telling those ridiculous lies or just winding Joe up.

He made quick work of getting the cover loose, but had to get Webster to help him lift it off without risking dropping it and making a racket. No wonder so many of the things had been stolen for scrap metal back in the day when they made them so damn thick. He’d planned to close it up behind them once they were in, but that got cut from the plan at the realisation that there was a real risk he wouldn’t be able to lift it away again from the inside while also staying on the ladder and carrying the goods.

He dropped down first, landing with a thud, and then lit up his flashlight and shone the beam upwards so that Webster could actually see what he was doing as he climbed down, stepping off the ladder silently.

The service passage was narrow, if they wanted to pass each other it would be a squeeze and Joe was glad he wasn’t a real maintenance worker stuck working in places like this on a regular basis. Webster was silent as Joe counted his paces, measuring with steps to ensure he started drilling at the right section of the passage and would hit the vault and not just a nearby hallway. Webster had suggested using a tape measure, but that was fiddly and Joe trusted his instincts more.

He’d worked it out to be 57 steps from the entrance of the maintenance tunnel to the very small area of floor that was under the vault but far enough from the pressure sensors that it would be possible to avoid setting them off. Not letting the tension affect his stride length was the hardest part, but Joe had experience in his favour and so a few seconds later he was looking up at the spot that would soon be their entrance.

Joe spent a few minutes arranging his tools. He would have to work slowly and carefully to make sure that nothing set of the sensors. Plus, drilling up into the ceiling of the passage would mean taking regular breaks to prevent getting neck ache. Webster had offered to trade of shifts of drilling, but Joe had turned him down. As much as breaking through the foundations might be inelegant it was still a precision task and Joe couldn’t teach Webster the experience needed to be able to feel that sweet spot between getting through the brickwork but stopping before hitting the structure of the vault. So it was slow work.

“Hey, Web,” Joe called, as he aligned the drill bit. “What’s the best thing you’ve ever stolen?”

“I…” Webster paused. “Huh, that’s an interesting question.”

“You got an interesting answer?”

Webster shrugged. “I guess it depends on how you’re defining best. Most valuable, most famous, most unusual?”

Joe laughed. “Unusual like sharks, you mean?” he said. Because even after Webster had admitted it, Joe still couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that Webster’s target in L.A had been several tons of potentially lethal marine life.

“I guess, but I’ve done a few jobs like that, they aren’t that special really. Most of the job is in the hands of the animal experts, I just coordinate getting them access. And it’s not like I got to keep them. Anyway, sometimes it not about the physical take,” Webster said. “It’s about who you take it from or how you take it, you should know.”

“Like stealing from another thief?” Joe suggested. “Of course, I’ve never done that.

“Really, Boston? Let it go.” Webster sighed and rubbed at the left side of his chest, like maybe he scraped his ribs squeezing through the narrow part of the passage. “You might have _wanted_ the paintings but you hadn’t taken them yet,” he argued. “I’ve never stolen anything from you.”

“Still, I’m going to get you back for that someday,” Joe insisted. “You’re going to be so close to something you want and then, boom! I’ll swipe it out from under you, dirty tricks and all. But it’ll be a real surprise, I won’t taunt you about it first.”

“You’re taunting me right now,” Webster pointed out. “And I never planned on you, in Boston. I really didn’t realise you were after the paintings. The times we talked, I wasn’t messing with you because I knew you were there for the same thing I was, I just thought you a janitor with an attitude problem. I was completely surprised to see you in the painting rooms.”

“Not as surprised as I was to see you. And you still haven’t answered my question,” Joe pointed out. “What was the most interesting thing you ever stolen for yourself? Don’t over-think and make it about how good the heist was, just was what the coolest _thing._ ”

The moment dragged on, as Webster clearly ignored Joe’s suggestion and over-thought things anyway. Joe didn’t know why. Their tastes were different enough that the chances are that he wouldn’t agree with the merit of whatever Webster chose, he was just curious and wanted Web chattering about something mundane to help him keep from zoning out while drilling, without becoming so distracting that Joe lost focus and made a mistake. “Well?”

“I’m thinking,” Webster huffed.

“Well think faster,” Joe demanded. “At this rate I’ll be through the wall before you’ve answered one simple question.”

“Uh… I don’t know. I once stole a tie from a politician two minutes before he gave a major campaign speech.”

“Really? A tie?”

“A tie and his chances at becoming a congressman,” Webster declared. “He supported finning and opposed gay marriage, but he got ripped to shreds by his own voter base after the speech for being so disrespectful as to not wear a tie while in a church. Well, that and where the tie was eventually found, but everybody should know that politicians aren’t to be trusted with money. Okay, how about… the way you’d most like to steal something?”

“Wait, what?” Joe was too much of a pro to let the drill slip but he turned to stare at Webster.

“You got a question,” Webster said. “Now it’s my turn.”

“That’s not the game we’re playing,” Joe disagreed, but, “Something with drones. Ever since those fancy ones started getting sold in stores I’ve figured it would be cool do use one for some kind of hi-tech heist.”

“That seems doable,” Webster said, like he was already inviting himself along on the hypothetical job. Totally unprofessional, but then, it had been a long time since theirs was strictly a working relationship and Joe wasn’t about to say no.

The drilling dragged on for another ten minutes but finally Joe felt the hint of give that told him he’d weakened the structure enough to pull the ceiling down and access the floor of the vault. That was dusty work and neither of them talked while doing it, Joe was trying to breath as little as possible and wished he’d thought to bring along dust masks, but it wasn’t long before they hit the floor panel and Webster stepped aside once again so that Joe could loosen it.

“Here, give me a boost,” he said, and Webster complied - albeit with an unnecessary amount of huffing and puffing considering how heavy Joe wasn’t.

Lifting the floor tile away took a little manoeuvring, but a few seconds later he had it clear and was able to pull himself up and into the vault.

He took a deep breath.

Fuck. He’d expected something plain and security focused but it even smelled like luxury, wood panelling covering the deposit boxes to make them look more elegant and less industrial.

He savoured it for a moment before there was a pointed cough from beneath him and he turned and helped drag Webster up. That was quite possibly the hardest part of the job. Webster was solidly built but he’d clearly never honed the sort of climbing skills that would make pulling him up easier.

Once he was up, Joe stepped back and gave Webster a moment to breath it in, enjoying the way that just for a moment Web dropped his usual ‘seen it all’ facade. Joe wanted to put that look on his face more often. But for now they had to get the deposit boxes out of their holdings.

It was risky, Joe’s plan to take the boxes without opening them up. The extra weight and bulk from the boxes would limit what they could take and he had no way of knowing if the ones he took contained anything worth dating. But smashing into the boxes in a hurry risked damaging their contents and opening them up carefully would mean taking a lot longer in the vault, and the last thing they needed was to take too long and end up being caught slipping out of the passage by an early morning jogger.

On the plus side, even Webster could be trusted with a simple bit of DIY like drilling the boxes from their housings.

After all the days of planning it was kind of anti-climactic, the grunt work of getting the boxes out of the wall and loading them up into their bags, but this was work after all. The real fun would come when they got back to the safe house and could start opening the boxes up to check out their haul, see what they could keep (bearer bonds, nice art, uncut gems) and what was better suited to dumping or selling (objects that only meant something to their owners, ugly art, family jewels) - although, it wouldn’t all be up to him, maybe Webster would want to keep a tiara.

It took nearly an hour to free enough boxes to fill both of their bags. They were heavy, but the bulk of the cases meant there had been no risk of loading them too heavy to lift. It was kind of a shame to leave so much behind but it was twice as much as Joe could have moved on his own. Once the room was back in order Joe took the lead again, dropping down into the maintenance shaft, Webster on his heels, but moments after landing came the second worst sound in the world.

An alarm had been activated.

“Shit,” Joe muttered. It was hard to run in such a narrow passage, especially with debris from his drilling coating the floor but he made his best attempt as he headed towards the ladder.

“Is there any way you can shut it off?” Webster called from behind him.

“Somebody is bound to have heard it already.” Joe laughed hoarsely. “Anyway, I’m good but I don’t even know where it is. It isn’t the right alarm tone for any of the ones belonging to the bank. Fuck, how did we— I miss this?”

He scrambled up the ladder, pulling himself up onto the street and stumbling to get clear of the hole. That was when he realised which direction the noise was coming from. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” he groaned.

“What is it?” Webster said as he pulled himself up behind Joe, head whipping around in search of further danger.

“We didn’t screw up with any of the bank alarms,” Joe explained. “It’s coming from next door. Who the fuck puts a military grade security system on a bakery?!”

“And who set it off?” Webster added.

“Shit.” A potential witness. “We need to move.”

He didn’t need to say it twice.

He broke into a sprint, Webster quickly pulling ahead due to having a bag he could carry on his shoulders instead of in his hands and therefore in the way. Fuck. Was it worth ditching the loot? It was slowing him down, yes, but an alarm going off at a bakery wasn’t likely to merit a high priority response even in a city as dull as this. They could make it. He was coming up on the parking lot where they’d left their getaway vehicle, Webster was already unlocking the doors and Joe ducked under the barrier and then—

A sudden searing pain in his side like nothing he’d ever felt before.

Joe reached for the hurt, felt a hot rush of blood under his fingers that sent him to his knees.

He’d broken a few bones before, even been stabbed twice, but he’d never felt pain like that before. He hadn’t heard a shot, couldn’t feel the extent of the injury, but as he crumpled to the pavement he figured that had to be what was wrong.

The bag wasn’t in his hands anymore though he couldn’t recall dropping it, and he could get purchase on the pavement to push himself up and search, his vision blurring even as he fought to look around for the bag, the shooter, Webster…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Monday:
> 
>   _...?_


	10. Episode 10 - Dead End

**_?????? - ????_ **

 

Joe woke the first time to the scent of bleach and blinding white and noted nothing else before the pain sent him back into the darkness.

The second time he woke aching and itching at the strange papery feel against his skin that he slowly recognised as a hospital gown. He tried to move but couldn’t and for a moment he panicked, heard the shrill beep of some kind of alarm and then the drugs were dragging him under again.

The lights had been dimmed enough for Joe to open his eyes the third time he woke. He was in a hospital room, as expected. His left arm anchored in place, not just by the I.V line but by a pair of cuffs that locked him to the bed-frame. Distantly that worried him, but it was hard to think about being captured when his head spun with drugs and every breath sent agony through his torso.

He remembered the bank. Drilling into the vault and taking the deposit boxes.

Then… things grew patchy.

He’d been running, though he couldn’t remember why, Webster a few paces ahead…

And then…?

…Nothing.

Nothing and now he’d woken up cuffed to a bed in a private hospital room. Probably because he’d been deemed a flight risk and a private room was easier to guard than a ward, rather than because anybody was concerned that the noise of other patients would disturb his recovery. There were several bags leading into his IV line, but Joe didn’t have a clue what was in them. Not blood, which might be reassuring or might just mean he’d been out long enough that they’d already given him all he needed. If he had to guess he’d go with saline and some sort of painkiller that would explain the floaty numbness of his limbs, but he had no clue what the third was.

He glanced at the plastic inpatient bracelet wrapped around his un-cuffed wrist, but all it told was his name and date of birth (he must have been fingerprinted while unconscious) and the date of the heist and presumably his arrival at the hospital. Useless. He started to sit up, his mind on getting a look at his chart so see if that had more useful information, but only managed to get a few inches off the pillows before a wave of pain sent him crashing back down again, head spinning.

Fuck.

He was helpless. Pinned down and weak as a kitten, and he didn’t even know how he’d got into this state.

Joe took several slow breaths, waiting for the dizziness to subside, then made a second attempt at looking around. Surely there must be a call button somewhere, if he could summon a nurse they might be able to give him a better idea of his situation, but no, he couldn’t see one anywhere.

His heart was starting to race in his chest. He was cornered and something had gone very wrong, with the plan and with him, but he couldn’t even figure out where he was hurt because the pain seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. He needed to move. Needed to push through the dizziness and get out of there.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up onto one elbow, managing to hold his position despite the wave of nausea that hit. When it started to die down, he pushed up again, this time into a sitting position, heaving slightly as he did so. Legs. He needed to find the strength to stand. No, wait, the cuffs first.

 There had to be something nearby he could use as a pick, all the hospital crap useful for something, but before he could focus on any one item the door was swinging open and he flinched from the bright hallway lights as two nurses bustled in, one pressing him back down against the bed as another did something with his tower of I.V bags that had his head spinning even faster, crashing down, down, down, and back into oblivion.

 

*

 

Nurses were present the next time he woke. Nurses and a uniformed cop.

The cop was useless, merely catching Joe up on the reading of his rights and the list of charges (the bank robbery and some outstanding warrants, though fewer than he’d feared) since he’d been unconscious at the time of his arrest.

The nurses were a little more helpful. It had been four days since the heist. The first, he’d spent in surgery, the second out cold. For the past two days he’d been in and out of consciousness, but against his expectations there had been no attempts to question him while he was too far out of head to know what he was saying.

He’d been shot, they explained, but it could be worse.

Joe might have cussed them out at that, because he certainly didn’t feel like it could be worse, but according to the doctors he was very lucky that the bulk of the damage had been to his liver, which would heal and regrow; and his kidney, which he had a spare of. His spine was undamaged and the doctors would be watching him closely for complications in his guts, but they were hopeful that in time he’d make a full recovery.

In time.

As he wrapped his mind around the diagnoses he realised that there would be no breaking out of the cuffs and slipping away into the night. He wasn’t even being transferred to a prison hospital for a few weeks, not until they were sure he was healed enough to take the move, but being somewhere with such low security was useless when he couldn’t move. It was better to wait out his time in the hospital and plan a more difficult escape when he was recovered then to try and slip away too soon and collapse and get caught or do damage that he couldn’t recover from.

So, he accepted his fate. For the time being.

The hospital meant being prodded at by nurses and stared at by doctors, but they took him off the hard drugs and slowly he began to feel his strength coming back to him. There was talk of physiotherapy, it seemed even a few weeks of bed rest could cause untold muscle degradation, but that would have to wait until they were absolutely sure he wouldn’t reopen the hole in his side. Joe had never had close dealings with medical professionals before, and he was a little discomforted by the realisation that they were far less certain of their methods than he’d always assumed. In movies, once a wound had been stitched up, it was for all intents and purposes healed, and it was frustrating to find just how inaccurate that was.

Every few days this routine of examinations was interrupted by a representative of the local police department or an FBI agent or insurance rep determined to get information out of him, but Joe employed them same strategy on all of them. A raised eyebrow and unbroken silence was un-incriminating and tended to prompt his accusers to fill the silence and give away bits of information about how he’d ended up here and what they actually had on him.

A raised eyebrow and unbroken silence was un-incriminating and tended to prompt his accusers to fill the silence and give away threads of information about how he’d ended up here and what they actually had on him.

The bank job would be hard to deny when they had him metres from the scene with a bag full of stolen safety deposits boxes beside him, but a lot of the other charges were circumstantial enough that he just might be able to evade them if he played his cards right, although being caught robbing a bank didn’t do wonders for his credibility. On the other hand, having all of past crimes dredged up might slow things down. Just the bank robbery would be a fairly clean-cut case, but if they tacked on a whole bunch of older charges then things could drag out in court for who knows how long. Though, even if none of the other charges stuck, going down for bank-robbery would be a big enough problem all on its own.

The cops also let slip just how Joe had ended up shot. The bakery next door to the bank turned out to have been a drug front, his assailant a dealer who’d been planning on robbing his rivals but he’d panicked when he set off the alarm and been further aggravated by the sight of Joe running past. He’d begun firing in a panic and then the guys who ran the ‘bakery’ had showed up and everything had gone completely to shit.

It was kind of infuriating. If he’d fucked up the plan then at least Joe could have learned from his mistakes to avoid repeating them on future jobs. There was no way to prevent a kick in the teeth from the universe.

He’d also been asked several times to give a statement on his perspective of the events, but since he genuinely remembered nothing about the shooting and talking about what he did remember would mean admitting to being at the sight of the bank robbery and he had no wish to incriminate himself further, Joe declined.

In the first days, when he was still under the influence of drugs or distracted with pain, Joe didn’t notice, but as his stay dragged on he realised something. That all through the process, nobody had made a single mention of Webster.

None of the cops had mentioned inside information on the heist that they couldn’t have figured out just from seeing the scene, nor did they try any prisoners’ dilemma bullshit in which they tried to talk him into pinning things on Web or claim that he should confess before Webster pinned the whole job on him. They didn’t even casually mention him.

If Joe asked, he’d be acknowledging some involvement and dragging Webster into it if he had got away clean. It seemed unlikely. But if he’d been hit he would be in the same hospital and even if the cops were deliberately withholding information, the nurses would be talking about it if they had two criminals getting on their nerves because the cops guarding them were exercising their power to make the nurses’ lives as inconvenient as possible under the guise of security, even though Joe couldn’t even manage the walk to the bathroom unaided yet, let alone stage an escape. And if he’d been caught the cops would surely be gloating.

So maybe he had got away clean.

Which meant that he’d left Joe behind.

He must have heard the gunshot, must have noticed Joe go down, seen that he’d been hurt badly enough to keep him from getting over to Web and the getaway car. And Webster had… ditched him? Dropped the dead weight that might hinder his own getaway?

Joe knew the value of holding no connections, giving no trust, and never forgetting that everybody in his line of business was in it for their own skin. Ron had told him that once, and gone ahead and proved it years later. But despite his better judgement, he still thought that Webster…

No. There had to be some other reason. Webster had waltzed right in among the cops back in Chicago all that time ago, back when Joe had still been barely an ally to him, why would he run this time?

To save himself? Joe being shot might have spoked him, might have made getting away from the gunfire his first priority. It would still mean he’d abandoned Joe for his own interests, but at least it would be a better sort of selfishness than just wanting to get away with his share of the loot.

Maybe he’d trusted medical help to get to Joe in time and wanted to get away so that he’d be free to bust Joe out when the time came? It was a long shot. Joe knew now that he’d lost a lot of blood, and if that was Webster’s plan then it relied on some very big assumptions, namely that Joe wouldn’t bleed out waiting for help to arrive, and Webster wasn’t usually that kind of risk taker.

Or maybe Joe had been wrong to break his rules about being a solo operator and Webster was a thief and thieves couldn’t be trusted.

 

*

 

Joe had been in the hospital a full month before they finally started talking about moving him into a prison. It ought to have been a lot faster, but one of the nurses confided that there were concerns about finding a prison that was secure enough to hold him and had adequate medical facilities to ensure his recovery. It was, he’d realise later with the perspective that distant lent, highly suspicious that anybody involved in his case would be so invested in his wellbeing. At the time he was too relieved to over-think it.

Still, the fact he’d been brought completely off painkillers and pushed hard in physiotherapy in order to prepare for his transfer to a real prison meant he was in a foul temper when a familiar face pushed the door open.

“Come to gloat about your side winning,” Joe sneered, and Ron levelled him with a disdainful look.

No, Joe correctly mentally, not to gloat. Ron could be a bastard at times, but he was never that sort of bastard. And he wasn’t the type to find any triumph in Joe being brought in by bad luck instead of fairly beaten. Joe sat up despite the way it made him ache, unwilling to look weak in front of Ron.

“How is your recovery going?” Ron asked, sitting down in the plastic chair beside Joe’s bed as if his visit was totally usual and not clearly some kind of weird power-play about the fact he had the credentials to dismiss the guards on the door while Joe was still trapped here, too wounded to break out even now Ron was all that stood in his way.

“Physio is a bitch,” Joe admitted. “But here is better than anything I’d get in a prison infirmary.”

Ron nodded. “You haven’t been very co-operative with the locals,” he observed.

“Hey, I’ve been nothing but good to the nurses,” Joe remarked, even though he knew damn well that Ron was talking about his refusal to talk to the cops about anything that had happened. “They come to you for information?”

“They don’t want to invite jurisdictional issues,” Ron replied. “I just took a look at their records.”

Joe’s plan had been to give away as little information as possible, but there was no harm in asking Ron, who already knew too much. “If you’ve got your nose in everybody’s business… where’s Web now?”

“I wondered when you’d get around to asking about him,” Ron said. “He’s being held at Clermont county.”

Deep within Joe a small thread of irrational hope that Webster could bust him out withered and died, and yet at the same time he couldn’t help but feel a shred of vindictive satisfaction at the knowledge that he wouldn’t be left taking the fall while Web got away clean.

“How’d they get him?” Joe wondered. Webster had definitely made it as far as the car, he should have been able to drive out of there. The cops would have set up roadblocks once they realised the bank robbery had occurred, but with the head start he had Web shouldn’t have found it too hard to evade them.

“After the shooting started he pulled you to cover and called 911, stayed with you putting pressure on the wound until the ambulance got there, but local PD have a similar response time to the ambulance crews,” Ron said, matter-of-factly. “I think they threw a resisting arrest charge onto his list since they had to drag him away from you. But with how long he’s going away for, a few extra months isn’t going to mean much.”

Joe blinked at him. “Webster… called the cops and then stayed?”

“I told you once that I found something worth giving it all up for," Ron said mildly. “Guess I’m not the only one.”

“So, we’re both going down for the bank robbery,” Joe said, because it was easier to think on that than the notion of Webster alone in a cell somewhere (or hopefully alone, Webster had never struck Joe as somebody who’d do well in prison but he’d cope a lot better alone in a cell than dealing with other inmates) because he’d sacrificed his escape to save Joe’s life.

“You’re going down for the bank robbery,” Ron said. “You getting shot complicates that enough that they aren’t pressing the other charges yet. Your partner has no such mitigating circumstances.”

“What do they have on him?” Joe wondered. Chicago for sure, the attempted theft and the escape because Ron was too smart not to have figured out that Webster was the one behind that.

 Possibly the stuff with Ryder, he’d be able to give a fairly identifying description of Webster even if he only had a fake name to go with it, but for all appearances the art theft had been all Joe and Ryder couldn’t accuse Webster of taking his illegally obtained money without confessing his own crimes in the process.

“The frauds are the most easily proved, but there are at least a few counts of theft that should stick; plus, dangerous driving, trespass, eco-terrorism, and piracy.”

"What?” Joe couldn’t help but gape. “They're actually gonna go after him for streaming a few movies?"

"No, maritime piracy,” Ron corrected. “As I understand it there was an incident with a yacht in Miami a few years ago."

Huh. That sounded like a story Joe wanted to hear. Not from Ron though.

He was tempted to ask if Ron knew how Webster was doing, but that didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would be in police records, nor was it in Ron’s nature to have gone out of his way to check on somebody with whom he was barely associated. Instead, “They’re transferring me soon, aren’t they?” It would explain why Ron had picked now for his visit. Joe had hoped he’d have longer to get his strength back before having to deal with prison, but at the same time he’d never expected to get as long as he had. He’d have liked to make his escape attempt from somewhere with as many security weaknesses as the hospital had, but he’d always known it was an unlikely prospect.

Joe had never tried to seriously plan a prison break before. It wasn’t a challenge he was looking forward to. He’d done it before in the abstract, of course, but taking those idle thought experiments s and turning them into a real, executable plan was another matter. Of course, there hadn’t much he could do yet. How he went about it all depended on the prison, and that meant waiting for information on his incarceration.

“Yes,” Ron said. “You’ll be held at Kent Penitentiary to await trial, but that could take some time.”

Joe nodded. He’d been following the news. The chaos of the Trump impeachment and the number of kleptocrats dragged down with him was slowing the court system up and down the country, as replacements had to be found for half the government and judicial system, crooked judges stripped of their powers and decent ones distracted chasing after their own peers.

Kent was better than he’d expected. He’d been doing his prying about the local prisons ever since it became clear that was where he was ending up and Kent was the sort of place they sent money launderers and pot-smokers being made an example of.

He was at less risk of getting into trouble there then he would be at the higher security places he’d undoubtedly end up once they’d convicted him, and a long wait there for his trial would give him more chance to get his strength up and plan before they sent him down hard.

 

*

 

Prison had been easier when he was nineteen. Back then Joe had still been young enough to believe he had all the time in the world, no persistent ache in his side to remind him of his mortality, and three months had seemed like no time at all. Now his potential sentence stretched out ahead of him, eating his life away and it had been a long time since he was a dumb kid who saw prison as an opportunity to pick up some tricks from other crooks. The posturing wasn’t a fun game anymore and the guys flaunting their prison tats weren’t cool they were just pathetic.

He hated being confined, but worse than that was the boredom. None of Joe’s fellow prisoners offered much in the way of interesting conversation, the prison library was a single set of shelves populated mostly by self-help books and educational manuals, and there was only so much time each day he could spend working out before his side flared with pain and forced him to rest. There was no stopping his mind as he bounced between spiralling thoughts of how mad he’d go if he couldn’t get out; if Webster was coping better than Joe was (infuriating) or worse (and that made the ache in his side spread up through his chest); and, of course, the ever-present thought of how he could reclaim his freedom but it was hard to focus when he was so agitated. He had ideas of course, but most of them would require support he didn’t have: an outside man who could operate unrestricted or allies on the inside who could each do small things in order to create a hole Joe could slip through. The locks that kept him in the cell for eighteen hours a day weren’t the problem, Joe could improvise some tools and have the locks open in minutes, but getting past the guards and the cameras and fences without being spotted and overwhelmed was… well Joe had always been drawn to beating security systems and being the first guy to commit almost impossible crimes, but he generally preferred to plan them with rather more resources than prison offered.

But now he had next to nothing.

 

 _Materials_ : 1x prison jumpsuit, 2x t-shirt, 2x underwear, 2x socks, 1x flimsy plimsoll shoes. 1x towel. 1x bar of soap. Maximum 3x library books at a time. He could probably supplement the list by stealing some plastic cutlery from the cafeteria easily enough, the guards were more focused on looking out for brewing fights and Joe has been careful to keep his head down since he got in, but that was it.

 

 _Support_ : A state appointed attorney who visited once a month and seemed very keen but probably wouldn't be too amenable to doing anything that would facilitate Joe's escape unless Joe could come up with a legit seeming excuse for whatever he asked for. Skinny would help him, if Joe could get a message to him, but, while Skinny could help execute a plan if Joe told him what he needed, Skinny was a computers guy not an ideas or action guy. Ron might be tapped for information but there was no way he'd actively facilitate Joe's escape and he was too smart not to put the pieces together and figure out Joe’s intentions if he asked anything significant. The other inmates could be used but only if Joe could find a way to motivate them, keeping to himself had kept him out of trouble but it also meant that he hadn't made any allies he could call on to take risks for him.

 

None of it was enough. Not with walls and cameras and barbed wire fences and a hole in his side that was still barely holding together. Joe’s usual methods were useless here. The staff knew his record, knew his tricks, he needed to do something different.

The walls were built to keep people in, but the guards were only human.

What was it Webster had said, back when he was trying to prep Joe for casing the bank? There was rarely a disadvantage to knowing who you were up against.

And so he waited and he watched as his court date crept closer. He learnt rosters but more importantly he learnt names. There was Edwards — bad tempered and easily provoked to unnecessary roughness towards the prisoners, never enough to warrant medical treatment or spark an investigating into his actions, but he’d knock them down and bruise them up without a second thought. On alternative shifts with him was Stevens who had only been on the job for six months and really should find another line of work before the job ruined him, he was a worrier and if he was doing rounds alone he tended to get a little chatty with the prisoners, asking about their books and the game of three on three that had gone down in the yard earlier. When he got escorted to and from the clinic for his check-ups Joe had made a habit of talking to them, learning that Edwards find could attitude in even the most innocuous remarks but Stevens looked genuinely pleased when Joe mentioned his recovery was going well. He pressed his attorney for information on how his case doing and how the trial would go down and he waited.

His preliminary hearing was drawing nearer, but a plan was building in Joe’s mind. It was a shaky one, with more unknown elements than he’d normally risk, but he’d thought over the problem (and ahead and around it too) and this looked like the best shot he’d get. If he let them move him to a more secure facility it was all over.

He’d just have to hope that the luck that had deserted him during the bank job had come back around in his favour again.

Once his mind was occupied hashing out the details of the plan time seemed to speed up, and before he knew it he was being hustled into a van to be taken to his preliminary hearing.

His hands were cuffed in front of him which was a nice little confidence booster — clearly, they weren’t expecting him to try anything, which would work in his favour. There were two prison guards assigned to him, some rookie to drive the van and Edwards to escort him — Joe could work with that.

He kept quiet on the way to the courthouse, but not passive. A more easy-going person might have interpreted the look on his face as boredom or neutrality but he knew that Edwards would take it as a stare down. Good. A guy like that ought to feel people defying his power every once in a while. Joe didn’t struggle too much as Edwards dragged him from the van and led him towards the court, but he knew he wasn’t as docile as they guy would have liked either.

The building wasn’t fancy like the courthouses you saw on TV. It was no historic building lined with elegant wood panelling and populated with stylishly dressed high-flying legal types ingeniously outmanoeuvring each other. No. It was a 1960s brutalist concrete monstrosity filled with drab people who looked like they would rather be anywhere else. Joe had been in DMV offices that were more inspiring.

He was given a lazy pat-down and shuffled through a metal detector with twenty minutes to spare before the trial was due to start as he was ushered into courtroom three.

He was pushed into a cheap plastic seat between Edwards and his appointed attorney, and honestly, after everything he had achieved it was kind of disappointing to have the people around so indifferent to him. Notoriety was the mark of a bad thief, but if he had to go down he’d rather go down a legend than like this.

It was uncomfortably hot already in the room despite the fact it was still only early in the day and a glance around at the outdated looking AC and the windows sealed securely shut told him things were only going to get worse. He’d be lucky if the plastic chair didn’t melt right out from under his ass at this rate.

There was nothing he could do to set things in progress now so he shut his eyes and waited, listening to the sounds of other people filling into the room, the preparatory whispers as they waited for the trial to start. He’d always taken care of his hearing, ear-plugs when using loud equipment, headphones kept down low, so he heard the faint rattle of cuffs on wrists as they came through the door, a sound distinct from that of cuffs hanging unused on the belts of a cop.

There was only one person they could be bringing to his trial that would require cuffs.

Joe turned and took in the sight of him. Imprisonment had scraped away Webster’s gloss, left him looking older and more tired than Joe could ever have imagined. His facial hair had grown out far beyond the artful stubble he usually cultivated and turned into a mess of scruff, he might be thinner but it was hard to tell when he was wearing sweats and a loose prison-logo’ed t-shirt, but dark circles sat heavy under his eyes and Joe saw lines on his face where there’d never been any before.

Webster’s eyes landed on Joe, the same deep clear blue as always, and without any obvious shift in his expression, his whole face brightened.

He was beautiful.

It was good to see him, but it was also a problem. Joe’s plans had all involved working alone now and then hitting Clermont County to break Webster out later when he could pull together more resources. But one look at Webster made it obvious that there was no way Joe could leave without him.

Joe was tempted to call out, but the words all died in his mouth. When he spoke to Webster he didn’t want it to be like this, not where undeserving people, strangers who didn’t understand, could hear the words. Instead he rolled his eyes. “Bastard,” he muttered, loud enough for Edwards to hear. “That motherfucker set me up. Just you wait, he’s going down and I’m walking out of here a free man.” Edwards might not be paying attention now but he’d remember that later.

Joe tuned out the bullshit legal preliminaries, the opening statements of each lawyer, both of which he guessed were lame just by looking at who they were coming from.

Only when it was time for him to testify did he finally start paying attention. He stood, feeling momentary relief at getting out of the sticky plastic chair and stepped sideward, eyes on the stand and wondering if they were expecting to try and make him swear on a bible. They hadn’t asked him in advance, and would get pretty fucking awkward if he refused because they didn’t have alternative options prepared and Joe kind of got this feeling that this wasn’t the kind of place that had sixteen different holy texts stashed on a shelf somewhere ready to cater to whatever people asked for. Hopefully it wouldn’t matter, but it would be one more opportunity to piss Edwards off if Joe couldn’t pull off getting the man to blow his top in the next two minutes.

“You’re going to look so stupid when I walk out of here,” Joe muttered, and in response Edwards yanked at his cuffs and sent him stumbling hard enough that he crashed to the ground.

Joe hissed as he hit the marble floor. So, it _was_ going to be like this. He took a deep breath and started to straighten, but then he doubled over, clutching at his side. “Fuck,” he gasped, turning his head to glare at Edwards, “You bastard, I… oh jesus,” he pawed at his shirt and then cursed again. “I think I’m bleeding.”

For a moment there was no response, the people around him far too wrapped up in their own affairs to care about in prisoner in pain on the floor. Joe grit his teeth, groped at where he knew the wound to be and let out a cry of pain as his fingers dug in.

That got people’s attention, first whispers then, ‘ _Should somebody call a doctor?_ _’,_ one of the lawyers dropping to a knee next to Joe to check him over only to recoil as Joe retched and shuddered.

He bit the inside of his cheek and tears welled in his eyes. “My side,” he gasped out, “My-” his words broke off in a chocking sob. He curled up tighter around himself with another groan on pain, working on his cuffs.

And then, a reminder of the element that he hadn’t counted on, Webster’s voice, sharp and scared, calling out. “Let me go over there!” Somebody said something to him, drowned out by voices nearer to Joe, but then Webster continued, “I was pre-med, I can help!”

It was an outrageous lie and Joe had to dig his fingers even harder into the wound to keep from smirking when a moment later he was being rolled over to look up into concerned blue eyes. Anybody involved in their cases ought to know enough about Webster’s background to realise he was lying but Webster knew how to sell a lie.

“He needs a hospital,” Webster said, with a conviction that belied the fact that Joe knew full well Webster had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. Though Joe supposed if challenged Webster could always claim he was playing it safe.

“I’ll call 911.” That voice was Joe’s attorney, apparently good for at least one thing, but right now that wasn’t what Joe needed. It would have been perfect for his planned ambulance breakout, but things had changed. If he followed his original strategy now he’d have to leave Webster behind and that wasn’t an option.

His little act had been meant to make the guards sloppy enough to be careless with him, nobody wanted to be the guy sitting around explaining how they let Joe bled out internally if there was some sort of investigation, but it wasn’t going to make them sympathetic enough for Webster to come along in the ambulance for emotional support.

He wouldn’t get another shot like this and he had to take it, even if it meant doing something drastic.

Joe had always avoided violent crimes in the past. Partly because he found no satisfaction in using those methods and partly because he’d needed the risk of extra jail time, but he was facing down years in prison anyway so that no longer mattered.

Edwards was still kneeling beside him, obviously paranoid about being blamed for Joe’s collapse, and with all his attention on making sure he wasn’t about to get stuck with a manslaughter charge he wasn’t paying attention to his gun.

Joe took a deep breath, muscles tensing as he braced for action - once he moved he would have to take control of the situation fast.

Then he reached up and snatched the gun.

He was quick but not invisible, he heard a scream as one of the onlookers realised what he’d done. He stood, acutely away that this couldn’t turn into a shootout when there were so many people around to get caught in the crossfire and that he needed a shield before one of the courtroom guards got the bright idea to try and fire through the crowd at Joe in the hope of being a hero.

Joe waved the gun, making sure it looked like anybody could be hit so nobody would get clever and reached out with his other hand, fingers twisting into fabric and pulling. The guards might want to take him out but Joe was pretty sure they wouldn’t want to shoot through a hostage.

Still, he’d owe Web an apology when they made it out of there for the way Joe shoved the barrel of the gun up against the unshaven hollow of his throat, metal pressing bruisingly hard against the point Joe had once spent half a night lavishing kisses upon, leaving a far more pleasing mark than this encounter would.

“Everybody down!” he yelled as he pulled Webster against him, to the guards it would just look like he didn’t want to leave any space for them to shoot past his hostage, but Joe had his own reasons for wanting Web close enough that he could feel Webster against his body, though it also meant he felt the way Webster tensed when Joe cocked the gun, the sloppy trigger discipline necessary to seem like a credible threat.

“I’m gonna take this traitor,” Joe said and Webster tensed a little further but Joe had to sell this, if the guards thought he and Webster were still partners then they wouldn’t be held back by the belief that Joe might kill him. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, hoping that Webster would catch the right side of the double meaning, before he started talking to the room again, “And we’re gonna walk out of here. Any of you moves and I put a bullet in him and then I open up on the rest of you fuckers.”

He moved quickly towards the courtroom door, knowing at once he was out in the hallways things would only get more dangerous with too many angles of approach for him to watch his own back.

Fortunately, the corridor outside the courtroom was deserted. Joe shoved a chair under the handle, jamming the door closed behind them, though that wouldn’t hold it for long. Still, it was enough that Joe withdrew the gun, although he didn’t lower it in case somebody came around the corner, then pressed his lips to Webster’s ear, “Out here they don’t know we’re partners so I need you to play the scared hostage,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

“Wait,” Webster said, pulling free of Joe’s grasp and for a moment Joe thought he would argue with the plan but he just said, “Let me get the cuffs off, they’ll be more cautious if they think you’ve taken a bystander hostage not another criminal.”

“Taking the cuffs off isn’t going to be enough for that,” Joe pointed out. “You’re wearing prison clothes.”

But Webster was already slipping his wrists free, Joe clearly hadn’t been the only one taking advantage of the chaos to loosen his restraints. “Nobody is going to be looking that closely at me if you’re waving a gun around,” he said, slipping his arms from his sleeves and twisting his shirt around. To anybody paying attention it would be obvious it was back to front but if he kept his head down and Joe kept their attention elsewhere then he might just pass as a badly dressed but innocent witness.

“Okay,” Joe said, wrapping his arm around Webster again. He’d held diamonds and gold, stacks of cash and computer drives worth lives, but as he pressed the gun back under Webster’s chin he realised he finally understood what people meant when they said priceless. “Let’s go.”

He shoved Webster down the corridor, yelling when they passed two baby-lawyer types who fortunately dropped to the ground at the slight of the gun. They were coming up on the lobby and Joe knew that was going to be hardest part. The guards in the courtroom had surely warned the lobby guards they were coming and even assuming that they wouldn’t shoot Webster to get to him, he could still only use Web to cover one angle.

“If this goes wrong…” Webster said, as they were approaching the door.

“Really? You wanna do speeches...?” Joe said. He knew full well that there was the very real possibility of this all going to shit, but dwelling on those possibilities wouldn’t get them out.

“I saw you go down,” Webster’s voice was brittle. “Joe, I can’t watch you get shot again.”

“Then you’d best sell the hostage act,” Joe snapped, digging the gun into Webster’s throat. He wasn’t going to let Webster jinx this with goodbyes.

He kicked the door open, forcing Webster to stop talking and start playing the part.

Three security guards were pointing their guns at him the moment he was through the door. He gripped the gun tighter and stared them down. “Nobody has to get hurt here,” he called out, taking slow steps forward. Stopping would be ceding control of the situation over to them but he was also in no hurry to make any sudden moves when they looked so jumpy.

He moved steadily until he was halfway across the room and then Joe hesitated.

As soon as he stepped forward it would be possible for the guard by the metal detector to shoot him in the back. He turned sideways and stared the guy down. Late-middle age and not in great shape, he was practically dripping with sweat and it was clear to Joe that he’d never expected working in a small-town courthouse to put him in this position. “My finger is on the trigger,” he reminded the guy. “You don’t want anybody to die, do you?”

The guy shook his head and at the same time Joe felt Webster’s head tip in a minute nod. Web thought he was telling the truth - that made one person in the room who wasn’t a threat, only a few dozen others to worry about now. Joe took a deep breath and pushed on towards the front door. With every step he could feel premature relief bubbling in his chest, they were going to make it out of here, the guards to shaken by this hostage gambit to act. They were fifteen feet from the door and then ten and then a shot rang out followed by a shattering of glass.

He dived for the floor on instinct, pinning Webster beneath him. A glance up showed the guards looked as startled as he did, but a mousey looking guy in a badly fitting suit was holding a gun in shaky hands and pointing it his direction. Three feet to Joe’s left a window pane was shattered, but he couldn’t count on the guy missing a second time.

Joe cussed.

He still had his own gun but whatever he’d threatened, he wasn’t actually going to start shooting into a pack of mostly innocent bystanders just to cover his exit.

They were feet from the door, they might be able to just make a run for it but doing that would mean letting go of Webster and stripping him of the relative safety of playing the unwilling hostage. And even if they could get out they couldn’t make an escape on foot and breaking into a car would take valuable time that they didn’t have now that Joe had lost the upper hand.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered.

“Lieb,” Webster hissed. “Plan?”

“Not really,” Joe muttered back, but the guards were starting to gather themselves now and there wasn’t time to think of anything clever. “Fuck it,” he said, scrambling to his feet and dragging Webster up with him. “Run!”

They crashed through the doors and Joe scanned the parking lot, looking for a potential getaway.

Most of the cars were nothing impressive and breaking into a car took time, plus there was a security barrier at the gate which Joe doubted would be getting raised for them. But parked on the far edge of the lot was a motorcycle and that might be able to slip around the barrier.

He tugged Webster over and climbed aboard. “Get on,” he demanded as he hunched forward, trying to remember all the old tricks he knew for starting a bike without a key and hoping that those tricks still applied to newer models.

It took a few seconds to get the engine turning over and by that point he could see the guards had followed them outside so there was no time for second guessing as he pulled his feet off the ground and started accelerating forward.

They made it a whole metre before they wobbled perilously and Webster squeezed his ribs. “Do you know how to ride one of these?”

Joe flashed back to a few shaky teenage joyrides around parking lots and that time he and a few friends had ventured out into the streets only for Joe to crash into a trash can before they’d made it a block. But then again, he hadn’t known how to drive at all back then and surely there were transferable skills involved. “Well enough,” he answered, then revved the engine and again and this time drove a little more smoothly as he turned them towards the gate.

The scraping noise as the passed by the barrier told him that he hadn’t been quite right about the bike fitting through the space but it was enough to get them out and the bike kept responding just fine so he figured the damage was superficial.

Then they were out on the street and merging with the traffic. In theory they had the additional advantage of being able to manoeuvre around obstacles and traffic and even leave the road if needed but, given their lack of helmets and how rusty his skills were, Joe decided to reserve those options for use only if they were truly needed. Escaping would be pointless if he smeared them across the tarmac.

Distance from the courthouse was essential, but Joe was also already thinking about changing vehicles to something that wouldn’t be so immediately linked with them. The smart move would be to split up, take two cars and head in different directions, leaving the authorities with the choice between aggressively pursuing one of them or splitting their resources and making a flimsy attempt at following them in two directions. But then, the smart move would have been to stick to his original plan and leave Webster at the courthouse. And the smart move would have been for Webster to run when Joe was shot instead of sticking around and getting caught in the first place.

Smart, Joe decided, was overrated.

If Webster said he wanted to leave then Joe wouldn’t stop him, but when he pulled up beside an office building with a row of nicely generic sedans parked out front Joe decided he wasn’t going to offer if Web didn’t think of it himself.

Joe killed the engine but it took a few seconds for Webster’s arms to unwind from their tight cinch on his ribs to allow him to dismount.

“I don’t think I like motorcycles,” Webster murmured shakily.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Joe joked, rubbing at his ribs. “You’ve got a hell of a grip.” He was pretty sure he wouldn’t bruise but he would certainly be feeling the ghost of the squeeze for a while, not that he minded.

Webster paled however, looking at Joe with wide, guilty eyes. “Your side!” he said, voice tinged with alarm. “Did I hurt you?”

“What? No.” Joe shook his head. His side ached from the poking he’d needed to make his act at that courthouse look convincing but the wound was mostly healed and Webster’s arms had been higher than that anyway. “It’s mended okay, I just played up the fall as a distraction.” There was a saddlebag on the bike and a quick rummage revealed a toolkit that should contain what Joe needed to open up one of the cars without the need to smash anything. “Taking a dive was always the plan, though I was originally aiming to get put in an ambulance and escape from there. I’d been goading Edwards into pushing me but if he hadn’t done it I’d have faked tripping on the way out.”

“Oh. Okay, that makes sense,” Webster said, then he frowned. “Still, you didn’t think the tears were kind of overdoing it?”

“Centuries of social conditioning making people uncomfortable with the sight of a grown man crying,” Joe explained, putting a slim screwdriver to the lock of a silver Ford that didn’t look like it contained any personal affects the owner was likely to miss. “Best way to keep them checking too closely and realising there was nothing actually wrong.”

There was an approving twist to Webster’s mouth as he nodded, but it quickly faded into a frown as Joe finally got the car door open.

“What now?”

“You get in the car, duh,” Joe said, climbing into the driver’s seat and leaning over to swing the passenger side door open. He was hoping switching cars would keep the cops off their tail, but the last thing they needed was to get pulled over because Webster was a fuck-awful driver.

There was a long pause as he sat in the seat and didn’t look, didn’t dare to turn his head to see if Webster was listening or walking away, but then Webster slipping into the seat on his right and Joe sagged in relief, leaning forward to get the car started.

He was tense as they pulled back in the road, eager to put some distance between them and the bike and also their pursuers, but when the hit the city limits with coming to a roadblock Joe finally started to feel like they might just get away clean.

“You know,” he said, relaxing against his seat. “You played the game wrong.”

“What?”

“Back when we were tunnelling into the bank, I asked you what the best thing you’d taken was,” he explained. “And you answered but then you moved right onto a new question without asking me what my answer to that question was.”

Webster furrowed his brow. “I didn’t realise that was what we were doing,” he said. “Did you want me to ask?”

Joe shrugged.

Webster rolled his eyes. “Joe…”

“Nah, whatever,” he said, because it wasn’t like it was important, he hadn’t even cared at the time. “I was just thinking, guess my answer would have changed now.”

“What?”

“The best thing I ever took,” Joe explained.

“What, that guard’s gun?” Webster asked dubiously, “I mean, it was a well-executed lift but—”

“Okay,” Joe interrupted. “First, your answer was some politician’s tie so you have no room to judge me on anything; and also, I didn’t mean the gun.”

Webster twisted in his seat, seatbelt slipping down his shoulder as he stared at Joe full on. “What, you stole something while in prison?” he said. “Is this you looking for an invitation to brag, because I didn’t think you needed one but—”

“You!” Joe snapped, impatiently. “Jeez, for a smart guy you’re dense sometimes. I’m talking about you.”

Webster’s whole face twisted up in a lot of extreme bewilderment. “Me? What?”

“I just took you out of police custody,” Joe said. “That’s a hell of a theft.”

Webster shook his head. “It was prison guard custody really, anyway I’m a person,” he said. “You can’t steal a person.”

“I didn’t say steal, I said took,” Joe corrected. “And you have to admit—”

“I’m sure you said steal the first time,” Webster insisted.

“That’s not the point,” Joe said. “I, you, I… urgh, I’m saying that you’re—”

“Oh.” Webster’s eyes went wide, like he was finally catching Joe’s drift. “Oh… well…”

For a few moments they drove in silence as Webster looked thoughtful but then, “Are we… are you driving anywhere in particular?” he asked. “Or just away from here.”

“We need to get somewhere we can lay low, get new clothes, documents and shit,” Joe explained. “Then out of the country would be best, me waving a gun around back there is gonna bring more heat than any art job.”

“That’s sensible,” Webster said with a nod. “But how do we get out of the country? I have stashes with I.Ds and cash, but they’re nowhere near Ohio.”

Joe shook his head. “No, there’s no time to check out if any of them have been found by cops. We need to start fresh.”

“We…”

“Yeah, I know some people who can get us out,” Joe said, he’d been thinking about possible destinations for after their escapes while he was incarcerated and he’d had some ideas. “I’m thinking the Maldives. I have contacts there that could help get us set up, there’s a lot of easy money there and they’ve got shark diving and shit that you like.”

For a moment the suggestion hung in the air, and in the silence Joe wondered if Web was taking him taking the ‘and shit’ on after shark diving the wrong way when he’d only really meant it in a casual sense, but then Webster said, “Wait, you want us to go to the Maldives together?”

Joe shrugged. What else could Webster have thought he was suggesting? “You know, there aren’t that many none extradition countries that also have a decent standard of living, but if you’ve got somewhere else in mind...”

“No, this isn’t about the Maldives.” Webster ran his hands through his hair. “Are you asking me because you want me to come with you and stay, or are we just talking about conveniently sharing travel arrangements?”

“The first one,” Joe said, because for fuck’s sake he’d caused chaos in L.A despite knowing nothing about the plan other than that it was Webster’s, scaled the outside of a goddamn skyscraper and cut deals with the FBI when Web had been in danger, stole a renaissance painting he didn’t even like, risked being marked down as a violent sort of criminal just to keep Web from going back to jail even for long enough to think of a safer plan, did Webster really need telling any other way? “You and me, on an island somewhere until the cops get bored of looking for us.” Let the trouble die down and give themselves time to fully recover, for the ache to fully fade from Joe’s side and the shadows to be washed away from beneath Webster’s eyes. “We can catch fish, and drink whatever weird fruity drinks tourists drink, enjoy the sun,” Joe had always been more prone to burning than tanning but he liked the idea of Webster, sun-browned with salt-water stiff curls and bitching about sand in places it shouldn’t be because he’d let Joe talk him into going at it right there on the beach, “If we’re going, let’s go together.”

“You… you’ve really thought about this haven’t you?” Webster said, sounding more incredulous that the situation merited. “We could just leave this mess behind, start again, the two of us…”

“Yeah. We can be…” Joe hummed as he paused for thought. “Joseph Rodgers and David Austen, rich American business partners taking a long-term vacation from the pressures of work,” he suggested, after all, it was Web who said a good lie was just the truth with some details smudged.

Webster raised an eyebrow. “David Austen?”

Joe nodded. “I respect that little theme you have going, but you need to branch out.”

“You…” Webster gave a breathless little laugh. “David Austen,” he repeated the name a few times, like he was trying it out. “I… Are you sure?” If Webster didn’t stop gnawing on his lip he was going to split it.

“About the name, or about my passports guy?” Joe asked. Webster couldn’t be asking if he was sure about them. “Because if you already used that I.D and burned it then I can pick something else, but trust me, this guy does good work.”

"Not that,” Webster said. “But, you love this work, I never figured you for the type to be happy just taking a break…"

Joe rolled his eyes. "Don’t be dense, Web,” he said, reaching over to grab Webster’s hand. “Come with me so that we can _plan_."

“Oh.” Webster’s fingers curled between Joe’s. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn guys  
> it feels weird not to be putting a 'next monday' segment in here, but this is it. end of the line. It's been about a year since I started working on this monster of a concept and when I began I had every intention of it never getting past the day dreaming/note writing stage because the idea was just _so_ big and I couldn't imagine bringing it to fruition but here we are.  
>  I'm really pleased with how it has turned out and I'm hopeful that you've enjoyed this ride as much as I have <3


End file.
